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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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