The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.

Whether the angels play only Bach in praising God I am not quite sure; I am sure, however, that en famille they play Mozart.

The piano is the social instrument par excellence. It is drawing-room furniture, a sign of bourgeois prosperity, the most massive of the devices by which the young are tortured in the name of education, and the grown-up in the name of entertainment.

Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle.

Even experimental composers, revolutionary composers, self-styled radicals are, in writing revolutionary music, recognizing the music that preceded them precisely by trying to avoid it.

Nothing is more singular about this generation than its addiction to music.

Classical music is now a special taste, like the Greek language or pre-Columbian archeology, not a common culture of reciprocal communication and psychological shorthand.

Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.

Who hears music, feels his solitude Peopled at once.

To know whether you are enjoying a piece of music or not you must see whether you find yourself looking at the advertisements of Pear's soap at the end of the program.