We are involved in a life that passes understanding and our highest business is our daily life.

An artist conscientiously moves in a direction which for some good reason he takes, putting one work in front of the other with the hope he'll arrive before death overtakes him.

Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.

My music is purposeless play. It is an affirmation of life - not an attempt to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we are living.

I never had a hat, never wore one, but recently was given a brown suede duck-hunting hat. The moment I put it on I realized I was starved for a hat. I kept it warm by putting it on my head. I made plans to wear it especially when I was going to do any thinking. Somewhere in Virginia, I lost my hat.

After an hour or so in the woods looking for mushrooms, Dad said, 'Well, we can always go and buy some real ones.'

If someone says 'can't', that shows you what to do.

One day when I was studying with Schoenberg, he pointed out the eraser on his pencil and said, 'This end is more important than the other.' After twenty years I learned to write directly in ink.

When I went to the analyst for a kind of preliminary meeting, he said, 'I'll be able to fix you so that you'll write much more music than you do now.' I said, 'Good heavens! I already write too much, it seems to me.' That promise of his put me off.

All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again.