The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

Originally, I wanted to be a composer. I always tell people, 'I think of myself as a composer.

After I found out that I was playing music and that I'd have to learn how to read and write music, I started doing that about two years later. Finally, I said, "Oh, that means what I really want to do is to be a composer." But when I was coming up in Texas, there was segregation. There was no schools to go to. I taught myself how to read and how to start writing.

Only America makes you feel that everybody wants to be like you. That's what success is: Everybody wants to be like you.

To me, human existence exists on a multiple level, not just on a two-dimensional level, not just having to be identified with what you do and what you say.

Harmelody allows everybody to be an individual who does not have to imitate anybody else.

I have often read critical pieces where the critic said that what the composer was trying to do didn't come off. I have wondered what the critic meant if he didn't know what the composer was trying to do.