I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. 'That's different. For a monkey, it's terrific'.

We have a duty towards music; namely to invent it. ...Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it. For the act of invention implies the necessity of a lucky find and of achieving realization of this find. What we imagine does not necessarily take on concrete form and may remain in a state of virtuality; whereas invention is not conceivable apart from its actually being worked out.

The performance of performance has developed to such an extent in recent years that it challenges the music itself and will soon threaten it with relegation.

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

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.

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