Quotes by 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)

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

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal. (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)

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. (Igor Stravinsky)