“As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.”

“Why do you not do as I do? Letting go of your thoughts as though they were the cold ashes of a long dead fire?”

“Nothing more then nothing can be said.We make our lives by what we love.Being American, having been trained to be sentimental, I fought for noises … when the war came along, I decided to use only quiet sounds. There seemed to me to be no truth, no good, in anything big.Somebody asked Debussy how he wrote music. He said: “I take all the tones there are, leave out he one’s I don’t want, and use all the others”. Satie said: “When I was young, people told me; you’ll see when you’re fifty years old. Now I’m fifty. I’ve seen nothing”.Slowly as the talk goes on, we are getting nowhere – and that is a pleasure.It is not irritating to be where one is, it is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.If anybody is sleepy, let him go to sleep.All I know about method is that when I’m not working I sometimes think I know something, but when I’m working, it is quit clear I know nothing.”

“I have nothing to sayand I am saying itand that is poetryas I need it.”

“I was twelve years old. I got out my bicycle and road over to KFWB. They said, ‘What do you want?’ I said, ‘I’d like to give a weekly radio program for the Boy Scouts.’ They said, ‘Are you an Eagle?’ I said, ‘No, I’m a Tenderfoot.’ They said, ‘Did the Boy Scouts send you?’ I said, ‘No, I just got the idea and came over.’ They said, ‘Well, run along.’ So I went over to KNX. They liked the idea and arranged a time for the first program. I then went to the Boy Scouts, told them what had happened, and asked for their approval and cooperation. They said it was all right to give the program but that they would not cooperate. In fact, they never did. Every time I asked for the Boy Scout band, they said No. Individual Scouts all gave their services willingly. There were boy sopranos; trumpet, trombone, and piano soloists; and Scouts who spoke on their experiences building fires and tying knots. The volume of fan mail increased each month. After two years, the organization called up KNX, said they’d never authorized the program, and demanded that I be put out and they be put in. They were. The band finally played. A few weeks later, KNX took the program off the air.”

“The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.”

“I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.”