122 Quotes by Igor Stravinsky

Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.

What force is more potent than love?

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

Old age is a time of humiliations, the most disagreeable of which, for me, is that I cannot work long at sustained high pressure with no leaks in concentration.

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

Art postulates communion, and the artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself.

Music is...the coordination between man and time.

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.