Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself.

Vivaldi didn't write 400 concertos; he wrote one concerto 400 times.

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

The further one separates himself from the precepts of the Christian Church, the further one distances himself from the truth. Only God can create. I make music from music.

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'.