I was...attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing "simple" music, blamed for deserting "modernism," accused of renouncing my "true Russian heritage." People who had never heard of, or cared about, the originals cried "sacrilege": "The classics are ours. Leave the classics alone." To them all my answer was and is the same: You "respect," but I love.
Igor StravinskyThere is music wherever there is rhythm, as there is life wherever there beats a pulse.
Igor StravinskyA 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.
Igor StravinskyMusic is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time.
Igor Stravinsky