We cannot describe sound, but we cannot forget it either.

It is my conviction that the public always shows itself more honest in its spontaneity than do those who officially set themselves up as judges of works of art.

Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also.

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one

Composition is frozen improvisation.

The profound meaning of music's essential aim... is to produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man with the Supreme Being

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.