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

A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares.
Igor Stravinsky

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

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

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

I am an inventor of music.
Igor Stravinsky

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, and I serve it in all lucidity.
Igor Stravinsky

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

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

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


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

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?
Igor Stravinsky

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

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

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.
Igor Stravinsky

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

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

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

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.
Igor Stravinsky

The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament.
Igor Stravinsky