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

Art in relation to life is nothing more than a glove turned inside out. It seems to have the same shapes and contours, but it can never be used for the same purpose. Art teaches nothing about life, just as life teaches us nothing about art.

The most interesting aspect for me, composing exclusively with patterns, is that there is not one organizational procedure more advantageous than another, perhaps because no one pattern ever takes precedence over the others

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

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

Any professional knows that the flute and the piano is a boring combination. All you've got to arrive at is a kind of typical gestural crap, right? You might agree, though you wouldn't call it gestural crap

Most music is metaphor, but Wolff is not. I am not metaphor either. Parable, maybe. Cage is sermon.