Art is sort of an experimental station in which one tries out living.

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.

If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound.

The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences.

Art is whatever you can get away with.

Ideas are one thing and what happens is another.

The world is no longer a romantic place; some of its people still are however, and therein lies the promise. Don't let the world win.