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

No one has the Houdini school of composition.

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

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.

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

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

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