What was great about the 50s is that for one brief moment - maybe, say, six weeks - nobody understood art.

No one has the Houdini school of composition.

To understand what music has to be, you have to live for music. Who's ready to do that?

We do not hear what we hear..., only what we remember.

For years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart.

I want to give my compliments to Australia. Ever since your government paid a few million dollars for a Jackson Pollack painting, I figure that it must be a marvellous country

Since music has never had a Rembrandt, we have remained nothing more than musicians.