I cannot bear assaults of any kind, and it seems to me that the Beatles essentially were out to affront and to assault.

I don't think any of the early Romantic composers knew how to write for the piano... The music of that era is full of empty theatrical gestures, full of exhibitionism, and it has a worldly, hedonistic quality that simply turns me off.

Drama seems to kind of surround me.

We Egyptians reject any kind of assault or insult against our prophet.

Any administration foolish enough to call ketchup a vegetable cannot be expected to cut the mustard.

There's a very curious and - and almost sadistic lust for blood that overcomes the concert listener, and there's a waiting for it to happen: a waiting for the horn to fluff; a waiting for the strings to become ragged; a waiting for the conductor to forget the subdivide, you know? And it's dreadful!