When I was in Paris, all of the German refugees began to flow in and it was a very sad time.

Almost every one of my various zero numbered birthdays has had a big concert in London and often in Paris.

Then, when the Depression came, all of this changed completely. Since that time, the entire public is of a very different sort and there was not so much support for contemporary music in a direct way.

Right at the end of the war I wrote a piano sonata, which was written at a time when Sam Barber used to come down here and we used to have lunch together in a very nice old hotel that's now not there.

Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.

Why write for the orchestra? For one thing it's a very challenging problem.