Although I am basically self taught, I consider Debussy my teacher - the most important elements are colour, light and shadow.
Toru Takemitsu

Composition gives proper meaning to the natural streams of sound that penetrate the world.
Toru Takemitsu

I always want to write erotic music... Not only about the love between men and women, but in a much more universal sense - about the sensuality of the mechanism of the universe... about life.
Toru Takemitsu

I probably belong to a type of composer of songs who keeps thinking about melody... I am old fashioned.
Toru Takemitsu

Music is a form of prayer.
Toru Takemitsu

Music should be able to invoke the natural emotions in all human beings. Music is not notes fixed on apiece of paper.
Toru Takemitsu

The art music of the West has developed through out its history by means of individual geniuses, and out of the soil supporting them; non-Western musicians were born, and grew like the grasses of the field.
Toru Takemitsu