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

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.

I begin by considering an effect.

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

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

Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.

I do not ask for my music to be interpreted, but only for it to be played.