I never understood what rules I was supposed to learn, and what rules I was supposed to break

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

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

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

The composer makes plans, music laughs.

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

Compositionally I always wanted to be like Fred Astaire.