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

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

The composer makes plans, music laughs.

Boulez, who is everything I don't want art to be... Boulez, who once said in an essay that he is not interested in how a piece sounds, only how it is made.

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.

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

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