My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices.

There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C major.

Formalism is music that people don't understand at first hearing.

I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices.

I want nothing better, more flexible or more complete than the sonata form, which contains everything necessary for my structural purposes.

At home we didnt talk about religion. So gradually the question faded away by itself and disappeared from the agenda. When I was nineteen my father died; my response to his death was atheistic.

My mother had to explain that one couldnt compose a Liszt rhapsody because it was a piece of music that Liszt himself had composed.

Facts you can bend. Memories are much stronger things.

Lella York, the self-proclaimed queen of passive-aggressive behavior. [Lella's perceptive view of herself]

Young people, you need the wisdom of age, just as some of us older ones need your enthusiasm for life.

The supernatural world has always been more real to me than the real world.

There probably aren't a lot of actors my age who tap dance.

Hoes want attention, women want respect.

I'm really proud of it. To me, it's a movie about character behavior and the pecking order of the pack, as well as the central character's massive survival guilt.

Simplicity is the key to what I do.

A lot of people have pretty little heads, but it's difficult to find a pretty little mind.

I'm not a fan of purposely farting in front of other people. If you have to fart, leave the room.