Ideas, like young wine, should be put in storage and taken up again only after they have been allowed to ferment and to ripen.

I want to be able to depict in music a glass of beer so accurately that every listener can tell whether it is a Pilsner or a Kulmbacher.

He'd be better off shoveling snow.

The most perfect melodic shapes are found in Mozart; he has the lightness of touch which is the true objective ... Listen to the remarkable expansion of a Mozart melody, to Cherubino's 'Voi che sapete', for instance. You think it is coming to an end, but it goes farther, even farther.

Must one become seventy years old to recognize that one's greatest strength lies in creating musical kitsch?

I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

Ideas, like young wine, should be put in storage and taken up again only after they have been allowed to ferment and to ripen.