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

I knew I had to write a Mass of my own, but a real one.

To be deprived of art and left alone with philosophy is to be close to Hell.

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.

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live.

An audience is an abstraction; it has no taste. It must depend on the only person who has (pardon, should have), the conductor.

Old age is a time of humiliations, the most disagreeable of which, for me, is that I cannot work long at sustained high pressure with no leaks in concentration.