The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one

All you have to do is close your eyes and wait for the symbols.

I never understood the need for a "live" audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one.

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.

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

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.

Old age is a time of humiliations, the most disagreeable of which, for me, is that I cannot work long at sustained high pressure with no leaks in concentration.