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

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 Quote

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.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

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

I am an inventor of music.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

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

I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

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.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

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

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

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

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

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

My music is best understood by children and animals.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

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.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

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.
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

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

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

What force is more potent than love?
- Igor Stravinsky Quote

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