Nothing is likely about masterpieces, least of all whether there will be any.

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

A 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.

I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music.

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 am an inventor of music.

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