Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.

If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.

When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about his ideas of relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic - here on Sixth Avenue, for instance - I don’t have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound... I don’t need sound to talk to me.

Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.

Music is a means of rapid transportation.

My favourite music is the music I haven't yet heard. I don't hear the music I write: I write in order to hear the music I haven't yet heard.

It was at Harvard not quite forty years ago that I went into an anechoic [totally silent] chamber not expecting in that silent room to hear two sounds: one high, my nervous system in operation, one low, my blood in circulation. The reason I did not expect to hear those two sounds was that they were set into vibration without any intention on my part. That experience gave my life direction, the exploration of nonintention. No one else was doing that. I would do it for us. I did not know immediately what I was doing, nor, after all these years, have I found out much. I compose music.