I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.

Mediocrity borrows, genius steals.

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.

The further one separates himself from the precepts of the Christian Church, the further one distances himself from the truth. Only God can create. I make music from music.

The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.

My music is best understood by children and animals.

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.