All music is nothing more than a succession of impulses that converge towards a definite point of repose.

Silence, which will save from shame, will also deprive me of fame.

It's one of nature's way that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us.

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.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

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.

The one true comment on a piece of music is another piece of music.