"Music is a chronometer by means of which the soul measures time."

"I am not a theorist. I am a practitioner."

"We in Russia have our Trotskys, and I myself should be highly annoyed if anyone were to take them for authentic Russians."

"I never compose anything that I don't thoroughly understand."

"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."