It is the limitation of means that determines style, gives rise to new forms and makes creativity possible
Limited minds can recognize limitations only in others.
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
For the Chinese, the Greeks, the Mayans, or the Egyptians, nature was a living totality, a creative being. For this reason, art, according to Aristotle, is imitation; the poet imitates the creative gesture of nature.
My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices.
There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.
Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitation touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful? Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be, therein to be content.