Conformism is so hot on the heels of the mass-produced avant-garde that the 'ins' and the 'outs' change places with the speed of mach 3.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos.

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa Lobos?

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.

Each of us has our definition of adventure: ending an unsatisfyingrelationship, returning to school, parachute jumping or training for amarathon. Go ahead. Get your thrill on.

How is it that disappointment arrives as soon as what you have desired for so long steps over the threshold? It’s like finding the end of your wedding train dragging behind in the mud.

It is always possible that a stupid and a mean leader can keep winning the elections and as for the result, there is no possibility here, there is only certainty: His country will keep sinking!

The saying that beauty is but skin deep, is but a skin-deep saying.

The best part of writing is thinking about the story. And then everything else takes a lot of discipline.

The rim is looking bigger and bigger every game.

To be able to choose between proprietary software packages is to be able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master.

When I was a kid I got no respect. When I went on the roller coaster, my old man told me to stand up straight.

... why do people who live in the country always give themselves such airs?

A lot of things inspire me - especially pain.