"As for myself, I need music for hygienic purposes, for the health of my soul. Without music in its best sense there i…"

"I was...attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing “simple” music, blamed for deserting “modernism,” accus…"

"My music is best understood by children and animals."

"One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles."

"The over-publicized bit about expression (or non-expression) was simply a way of saying that music is supra-personal …"

"The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they sho…"

"The phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and parti…"

"Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it."

"Much of the music is a Merzbild, put together from whatever came to hand. I mean, for example...the Alberti-bass horn…"

"For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling…"