As a matter of fact, I personally would much rather hear Perotin than Mozart.

I discovered that the most interesting music of all was made by simply lining the loops in unison, and letting them slowly shift out of phase with other.

All great music is contemporary. If it's still alive and kicking, then it's contemporary. If it fades away, it was a period piece. It had its moment, and that was it.

In serial music, the series itself is seldom audible... What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one in the same thing.

All music does come from a time and place. I was born and raised in New York. I moved out of New York, but it's inside of me and it will be inside of me until they put me in a box in the ground.

I'm not making any absurd comparisons between myself and Bach, but I aspire to that, that my music will have the legs to survive whatever context it finds itself in.

Up to the age of 14 I had not heard a note of anything before 1750, never heard a note of Bach, never heard anything after Wagner, and never heard any real jazz.

What I don't want to do is to go and buy a bunch of exotic-looking drums and set up an Afrikanische Musik in New York City.

If you cannot be a sun that illuminates the light, be a moon that never tires of reflecting the light.

You probably had more adventures today than I’ll have in a lifetime. Walking must seem tame to you.”“Elle, you’re more of an adventure than anything that’s ever happened to me.

and love is a word usedtoo much andmuchtoo soon.

Capitalism is always evaluated against dreams. Utopia is a dream. It doesn't exist.

Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul [Minnesota] in 1959 and it blew my mind. It was the first poetry that spoke my own language.

Is there such a thing as a technically perfect swing? If there is, I have yet to see it.

If it takes me 10 years to be the musician I want to be, great.

There is no point in having sharp images when you've fuzzy ideas.

Historically, most women who are powerful are seen as not being nice, even if they are.

A ghra. A amhain. My love. My only.