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.

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.

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

Mediocrity borrows, genius steals.

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.

I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya.

I never am sea sick, never. I am sea drunk!