So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.

Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness -- I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down ... some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.

There is something about music that keeps its distance even at the moment that it engulfs us. It is at the same time outside and away from us and inside and part of us. In one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it.

When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.