Igor Stravinsky Quotes

There is music wherever there is rhythm, as there is life wherever there beats a pulse.

My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos.

Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also.

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.

Look for the music on all things, and life will be a symphony of joy. My music is best understood by children and animals.

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.

Hurry? I have no time to hurry.

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time.

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

Vivaldi didn't write 400 concertos; he wrote one concerto 400 times.

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.

A cultural snob is someone who claims to be familiar with the incomprehensible.

Composition is selective improvisation.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament.

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live.

Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune.

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.