Igor Stravinsky

I have been called the 'Picasso of music.' I myself have never said that. I have always preferred to be myself.

I was not a 'revolutionary' in the sense of a man with a message. The only thing I was aware of was that I was doing my work, and that it was a question of going forward.

My music is an act of praise.

I hate the word 'masterpiece.' It's a cliché.

I never compose anything that I don't thoroughly understand.

I have always been a lonely man. I have always been a solitary man. I have always been a man who has lived in his own world.

I am not interested in 'expressing' anything. I am interested in building something.

Every time I compose, I think of a fresh way of doing it.

Music is given to us to organize what is otherwise a chaos.

A good composer does not imitate; he invents.

I know that the public will not understand my music. But I don't care. I write for myself.

I have spent my life trying to escape the 'isms' of music.

The more an artist tries to be original, the more he is likely to succeed.

I could not live without music, but I could live without the public.

The greatest joy one can have is to create.

I am a classicist, not a romanticist.

I have never understood why people are so afraid of new things.

I consider myself a craftsman, not a genius.

My whole life has been a flight from the past.

I am like a sponge. I absorb everything, and then I squeeze it out in my own way.