122 Quotes by Igor Stravinsky

I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa Lobos?

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators....

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being?

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

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

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.