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.

Composition is frozen improvisation.

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.

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

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.

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

Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.