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.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor we do not remember him in it.

I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.

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.