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

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

At one point [Cardew] taught himself to play guitar simply in order to take part in the performance in a composition by Boulez, which is a little like saying he learned Danish to read Kiekegaard.

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

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

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

For me it's the instrument. If I want to think of a flute and the state of the arts I hear a vibrato; I don't know what a flute is unless the person plays it for me