I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces.

Why become a second-rate Ravel when you're already a first-rate Gershwin?

Does it not occur to people that I might be artificial by nature?

You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.

I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little.

My intention here is to make it clear that not a single cell of my composition, here in regard to The Raven, is found by chance or intuition, that the composition moved towards perfection with the precision and inevitability of a mathematical equation.

If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music.