My grandfather was not a musician but he was an artist - a painter, a decorative painter.

For the past ten years I have had no financial problems.

Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland.

I only want to give a metaphysic for my music.

New York is the dream world, the center of jazz and rock.

But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris.

But I do not want to use Hungarian verses for British people.

I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.

I like to stay home and listen to recordings.

First of all I listen to music. I like music.

I write bars, for the musicians, because they have to be together.

In my piano concerto I developed this polyphony to much higher complexity.

I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists.

Yes, fractals are what I want to find in my music.

I listen to all kinds of music - new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything.

My grandfather was not a musician but he was an artist - a painter, a decorative painter.

There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry.

If you come from Paris to Budapest you think you are in Moscow.

Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully.

Steinberg is great. I should like to meet him.

I don't use old music.

People often thought Leopold Auer was Russian because he lived in St. Petersburg so long, almost fifty years.

Then, after the war it was impossible to travel, after so many years of Hitler and Stalin.

Gesualdo was very important to me, I wanted to do something which corresponded to him.

Perhaps the better word is emotional yes, I am an emotional man.

I don't read such boring things. Life is too short.

When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

I'm inspired by nature. Other artist's work is important for developing my perception.

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

What do you say when someone has truly inspired you? How do you express to an artist how deeply their work has affected you?

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.

You have to find what makes you stable in the storm. Then, no matter what's happening round you, no matter what the hype or the publicity, you can still manage to make leaps in your work as an artist.

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

I've always felt that if one was going to take seriously this vocation as an artist, you have to get beyond that decorative facade.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

The most colorful section of a bookstore is the display of SF books, with art by people like Wayne Barlow, who is a terrific artist.

Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.

Let not a man do what his sense of right bids him not to do, nor desire what it forbids him to desire. This is sufficient. The skillful artist will not alter his measures for the sake of a stupid workman.

I so much appreciate it when anybody tries to make something and tries to be an artist - I'm happy to see the work.

The artist is seen like a producer of commodities, like a factory that turns our refrigerators.

I've also been willing to share any help that I could give to any other artist.

An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature.