
To be deprived of art and left alone with philosophy is to be close to Hell. —
Igor Stravinsky

That's the way Stravinsky was. Bup, bup, bup, bup. The poor guy's dead now. Play it legato. —
Eugene Ormandy

We might as well swing boys, because Stravinsky cuts us all. —
Woody Herman

The profound meaning of music's essential aim ... is to produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man with the Supreme Being —
Igor Stravinsky

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

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that. —
Esa-Pekka Salonen

Revolution means turning the wheel. —
Igor Stravinsky

I had no idea Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much as this. —
Ernest Newman

Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn. —
Igor Stravinsky

I never am sea sick, never. I am sea drunk! —
Igor Stravinsky

We cannot describe sound, but we cannot forget it either. —
Igor Stravinsky

You can rave about Stravinsky without the slightest risk of being classified as a lunatic by the next generation . —
George Bernard Shaw

I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky. —
Esa-Pekka Salonen

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

New music? Hell, there's been no new music since Stravinsky. —
Duke Ellington

The first music I was exposed to was Stravinsky and I loved it but I don't remember it. —
Leo Kottke

The true creator may be recognized by his ability always to find about him, in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note. —
Igor Stravinsky

Georgian folk music has more new musical ideas than all the contemporary music.
[Los Angeles Times. 26.02.1990] —
Igor Stravinsky

Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it. —
Igor Stravinsky

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

My childhood was a peroid of waiting to the moment when i could send everyone in it to hell. —
Igor Stravinsky

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

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. —
Igor Stravinsky

To continue in one path is to go backward. —
Igor Stravinsky

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

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. —
Igor Stravinsky

The perfection of performance has escalated to the extent that the music itself is threatened with relegation. —
Igor Stravinsky

Composition is frozen improvisation. —
Igor Stravinsky

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. —
Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully. —
Gyorgy Ligeti

Hurry? I have no time to hurry. —
Igor Stravinsky

Conformism is so hot on the heels of the mass-produced avant-garde that the 'ins' and the 'outs' change places with the speed of mach 3. —
Igor Stravinsky

I never understood the need for a "live" audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one. —
Igor Stravinsky

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos. —
Igor Stravinsky

Nothing is likely about masterpieces, least of all whether there will be any. —
Igor Stravinsky

A good composer does not imitate; he steals. —
Igor Stravinsky

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

Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it. —
Igor Stravinsky

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

You may not be aware of this but Leonard Bernstein won another award, for explaining the music of Igor Stravinsky ... to Igor Stravinsky! —
Victor Borge

The man has accumulated a repertoire of facial tics and blinks that demand nothing less than a complete musical score by Stravinsky. —
Anonymous

I think of a sun like Beethoven, a wind like Debussy, and birdcalls like Stravinsky. But the tempo is all mine. —
Patricia Highsmith

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

An audience is an abstraction; it has no taste. It must depend on the only person who has (pardon, should have), the conductor. —
Igor Stravinsky

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

An artist is like a pig snouting truffles. —
Igor Stravinsky

The one true comment on a piece of music is another piece of music. —
Igor Stravinsky

One lives by memory . . . and not by truth. —
Igor Stravinsky

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

We have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it. —
Igor Stravinsky

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

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

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. —
Igor Stravinsky