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.

...we make our lives by what we love.

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.

When you make music you are acting as a philosopher. You can either do that consciously or you can do it unconsciously, but you're doing it.

All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again.

There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.

In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.