Morton Feldman

“For me, the score is an exact relationship of all the parts. It's an architectural drawing.”

“The composer makes plans. The music decides otherwise.”

“I'm not a clockmaker. I'm interested in getting to a new place. A place that I can't predict.”

“Art is a crucial, dangerous operation we perform on ourselves. Unless we take a chance, we die in art.”

“To me, sound is not a vehicle for my ideas. It is the idea.”

“The most important thing in my music is duration.”

“I have always been interested in the scale of a work rather than its form.”

“Music is not a language. Any musical imagery is a lie.”

“The pedal is the soul of the piano.”

“I don't have a system. I have a way of working.”

“My whole generation was hung up on the 25-minute piece. It was our clock. We all got to know it, and how to handle it. As soon as you leave the 25-minute piece behind, in a single stroke you remake the whole music world.”

“I am not a professional. My intuition is not professional.”

“What I'm interested in is the material's memory.”

“The past is not something you can get away from. It's not something you can get rid of.”

“I'm trying to create a world, not just a piece of music.”