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

"If a work is not finished by me before I begin to compose it, then I experience the deepest torment."

"The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution."

"I am not a theorist. I am a practitioner."

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