When I was young, I was told: 'You'll see, when you're fifty. I am fifty and I haven't seen a thing.

The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest. It is he who invented the sublime art of ruining poetry.

Why attack God? He may be as miserable as we are

Before I compose a piece, I walk around it several times, accompanied by myself.

I liked the bit about quarter to eleven. (on Debussy's "Dawn to Noon on the Sea")

I had just seen the movie 'Young Man With a Horn' about jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke. So I told him I'd take one of those.