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Igor Stravinsky Quotes and Quotations
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. Childhood - a period of waiting for the moment when I could send everyone and everything connected with it to hell. 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. Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end. I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the varieties of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust. Music is given to us specifically to make order of things, to move from an anarchic, individualistic state to a regulated, perfectly concious one, which alone insures vitality and durability. I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve. |