Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it.

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

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

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

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.

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

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