Music is on a higher plane than everything else in this world.

If you really put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price. Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.

No one ever erected a statue of a critic.

Music begins where the possibilities of language end.

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.