Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water.

I often conduct an orchestra in my sleep; my orchestras are so huge that the back desks of the violas vanish into the horizon. And everything is so wonderful.

Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water.

Millions of years ago, in my previous incarnations, I must have been related to swans... because I can still feel that affinity.

If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music.

All the doctors who wanted to forbid me to smoke and to drink are dead.

For an instant God opens his door and His orchestra plays the Fifth Symphony.