Igor Stravinsky Quotes

An artist is like a pig snouting truffles.

Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also.

Good composers don’t borrow, they steal.

I wonder if memory is true, and I know that it cannot be, but that one lives by memory nevertheless and not by truth.

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.

The more controlled, limited and tormented art is, the freer it is.

It’s one of nature’s way that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us.

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live.

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.

One’s belief that one is sincere is not so dangerous as one’s conviction that one is right. We all feel we are right; but we felt the same way twenty years ago and today we know we weren’t always right.