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

I begin by considering an effect.

Remember that I wrote a pavane for a dead princess, and not a dead pavane for a princess!

We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art

The only love affair I have ever had was with music.

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.

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