Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise.

The best way to hold on to something is to pay no attention to it. The things you love too much perish. You have to treat everything with irony, especially the things you hold dear. There's more of a chance then that they'll survive.

I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don't succeed, I consider it my own fault.

A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.

Every piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator...If a work doesnt express the composers own personal point of view, his own ideas, then it doesnt, in my opinion, even deserve to be born.

What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy? Doesn't laughter also have a claim to that lofty title? I want to fight for the legitimate right of laughter in "serious" music.

Music is good, not evil. Poetry is good, not evil. Primitive, but oh, so true!