Children must receive music instruction as naturally as food, with as much pleasure as they derive from a ball game, and this must happen from the beginning of their lives.

Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action. We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great.

It is hard to think of another composer who so perfectly marries form and passion.

Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.

Children must receive music instruction as naturally as food, with as much pleasure as they derive from a ball game, and this must happen from the beginning of their lives.

Any asshole can write a tone-row. It takes a composer to write a tune.

I've been all over the world and I've never seen a statue of a critic.