The problem with listening, of course, is that we don't. There's too much noise going on in our heads, so we never hear anything. The inner conversation simply never stops. It can be our voice or whatever voices we want to supply, but it's a constant racket. In the same way we don't see, and in the same way we don't feel, we don't touch, we don't taste.

The work I've done is the work I know, and the work I do is the work I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing.

You practice and you get better. It's very simple.

If you don't have a basis on which to make the choice, then you don't have a style at all. You have a series of accidents.

It doesn't need to be imagined, it needs to be written down.

I'm interested in what happens to music when other people use it. Whereas there are composers who don't like anyone to touch their music, I think people should because they do things I can't think of.

I've been called a minimalist composer for more than 30 years, and while I've never really agreed with the description, I've gotten used to it.