The Act Of Listening Is In Fact

There Are Some Good People In It, But The Orchestra As A Whole Is Equivalent To A Gang Bent On Destruction.

I Was Shocked At College To See One Hundred Of My Classmates In The Library All Reading Copies Of The Same Book. Instead Of Doing As They Did, I Went Into The Stacks And Read The First Book Written By An Author Whose Name Began With Z. I Received The Highest Grade In The Class. That Convinced Me That The Institution Was Not Being Run Correctly. I Left.

What Is The Purpose Of Writing Music? One Is, Of Course, Not Dealing With Purposes But Dealing With Sounds. Or The Answer Must Take The Form Of A Paradox: A Purposeful Purposeless Or A Purposeless Play. This Play, However, Is An Affirmation Of Life--not An Attempt To Bring Order Out Of Chaos Nor To Suggest Improvements In Creation, But Simply A Way Of Waking Up To The Very Life We’re Living, Which Is So Excellent Once One Gets One’s Mind And One’s Desires Out Of Its Way And Lets It Act Of Its Own Accord.

Why Do You Not Do As I Do? Letting Go Of Your Thoughts As Though They Were The Cold Ashes Of A Long Dead Fire?

I Certainly Had No Feeling For Harmony, And Schoenberg Thought That That Would Make It Impossible For Me To Write Music. He Said, 'you'll Come To A Wall You Won't Be Able To Get Through.' So I Said, 'i'll Beat My Head Against That Wall.'