Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time.

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.

A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street any more without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares.

Conformism is so hot on the heels of the mass-produced avant-garde that the 'ins' and the 'outs' change places with the speed of mach 3.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.

There is music wherever there is rhythm, as there is life wherever there beats a pulse.