I have a very dear friend, a great painter, called me up very upset, the work wasn’t going well… He asked me to come to his studio -- which I did -- I looked around at the work, dozens of sketches, drawings, large pictures, and I was very close to his work, intensely involved with his work, and he asked me, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I said, ‘Simple – it’s a loss of nerve.

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

If you think you might have secret information listening to me, you're lost.

Do we have anything in music that really wipes everything out? That just cleans everything away?

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

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

After all, Jews invented psychiatry to help other Jews become Gentiles.