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Good composers don’t borrow, they steal.

Igor Stravinsky

I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Criticism Day Dreams Music Painting Small
An artist is like a pig snouting truffles.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Animal Artist
Composition is frozen improvisation.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Describe Improvisation One Liner
Hurry? I have no time to hurry.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Hurry Myself Time
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.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Freedom Impose Oneself Precision Service
We can neither put back the clock nor slow down our forward speed, and as we are already flying pilotless, on instrument controls, it is even too late to ask where we are going.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Clock Control Fly Instrument Journey Slow Time
The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Aware Conscious Himself Thinking Time Willing Work
To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Difference Effort Listening
Music’s exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Flow Music Order Structure Time
The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

End Music Principle Reason Start
Composition is selective improvisation.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Improve One Liner Selective
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.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Drama Live Music Reading Relationship
Old age is a time of humiliations, the most disagreeable of which, for me, is that I cannot work long at sustained high pressure with no leaks in concentration.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Age Concentration Humiliation Old Pressure Time Work
Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Confusion Imagination Invention
The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Artist Creation Gift Hands Observation Talent
Look for the music on all things, and life will be a symphony of joy. My music is best understood by children and animals.
IGOR STRAVINSKY

Animal Children Life Music Myself Symphony Understand

Good composers don’t borrow, they steal.

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Good composers don’t borrow, they steal.

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