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" At MGM, you knew you were going to be working next year; you knew you were going to get paid. But I was too ambitious musically to settle for it. And I wanted to gamble with whatever talent I might have had. "

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" I don't write things that are wildly abstractly atonal. "

" I run around so much that I finally reasoned that composing is the one musical endeavour which you can do anywhere, anytime. "

" I've had the healthy and sobering experience of constantly working with music that is invariably better than any performance of it can be. "

" I found that jazz musicians, possibly more than their classical counterparts, wear long-standing friendships easily and gracefully. "

" I'm on very good terms with all my former wives. "

" I stuck around in Hollywood for too long. I was there a long time, and when I left, I was smart enough to realise that what I was leaving was not just the movie business. I wanted to get rid of the whole atmosphere. "

" People who don't do jazz think it's black magic. But really, it's just a matter of getting used to it. It's fun to gamble. The trick is not to fall back on the things you've done before. "

" When you're working with music that is invariably better than you are, it's difficult to become swell-headed. "

" I have a great many shortcomings, but writing for something on time has never bothered me. "

" When I composed, I heard my music played by the orchestra within days of completion of the score. No master at a conservatory, no matter how revered, can teach as much by verbal criticism as can a cold and analytical hearing of one's own music being played. "

" I don't even have a cell phone. I don't know how they work. "

" A Beethoven symphony should be rehearsed like chamber music, only for a lot more people. "

" I finally wasn't interested in writing music that played while actors talked. "

" I admire Elliott Carter endlessly. But I have no ambitions to emulate him. "

" Elliott Carter does not write the kind of music that the kids go off to school whistling. "