It is my conviction that the public always shows itself more honest in its spontaneity than do those who officially set themselves up as judges of works of art.

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.

Part of the writer's task is to recognize what he's done, then dive back in and make the connections clearer. I'm a strong believer in getting things right the ninth or tenth time.

In a certain state it is indecent to live longer.

I get terrible reviews everywhere I go.

A laughing Lear would be monstrous. Not so a laughing Romeo and Juliet.

Artists want to sell their work, sure. But they aren't out there asking questions about what people want and what they don't want, now are they?

Depend not on fortune, but on conduct.

I am a nihilist because I still believe in truth.

I started skating and I kind of liked it because I could run circles around the guys that wouldn't pick me to play baseball.

Im going to always rise above the doubt that may exist about me.

The stars are not the limit.