"My childhood was a period of waiting for the moment when I could send everyone and everything connected with it to hell."

"I am a very emotional man, but I do not show it."

"An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles."

"I was attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing “simple” music, blamed for deserting “modernism,” accused of renouncing my “true Russian heritage.” People who had never heard of, or cared …"

"I am like a sponge. I absorb everything, and then I squeeze it out in my own way."