“Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.”

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.

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.

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.

The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.

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.

Composition is selective improvisation.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

Music is the sole domain in which man realizes the present.

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.

All you have to do is close your eyes and wait for the symbols.

Look for the music on all things, and life will be a symphony of joy. My music is best understood by children and animals.

My music is best understood by children and animals.

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don’t like, it’s always by Villa Lobos?

A cultural snob is someone who claims to be familiar with the incomprehensible.

Doomed to total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference, he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, of whose mines he had a perfect knowledge.

Composition is frozen improvisation.

Don’t steal; thou’lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.

We stole a box of honey jars one time and went out in the woods and took care of the whole box. I don’t think I touched honey again for 20 years. I never wanted to see honey again.

In these days when we feed those who are not hungry, we are stealing from those who are starving, even though the food is our own.

The only art I’ll ever study is stuff I can steal from.

I am deeply skeptical of trade deals in general.But the only way they can get a number of Democrats is by doing a strong real currency bill that goes after the worst of the trading partners, the one that`s stealing our high-end jobs.

Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away. Purchased with common sense, paid for in full, and managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world.

Right from the start, you were a thief, you stole my heart.

Let’s be cheerful! We have no more right to steal the brightness out of the day for our own family than we have to steal the purse of a stranger.