Gyorgy Ligeti quotes:

Well I live in Vienna with my wife and son, and I teach in Hamburg, there will be no changes in that respect.

In January 1944 I was called up by the Forced Labor Service, but I deserted on October 10, 1944.

I continued to study Math and Physics on my own, but one and a half years later I realized that I did want to be a composer, and after that I never changed my mind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, I began composing as soon as I started taking piano lessons.

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

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

I think it was when I was nineteen, by that time the Jewish laws were already in force and the split was beginning to come about which isolated the Jewish culture.

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

I was fifteen years old, and I hardly knew how to play a simple Bach prelude on the piano when I began to compose music, and at the most advanced level. I had never studied such things as harmony.

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

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

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

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

It isn't false modesty when I say this, but although I am supposed to be a famous person it doesn't mean anything to me. I just sit at home and work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a very famous musician in our family. He was a great violinist, an internationally known teacher. He was Leopold Auer.

I only want to give a metaphysic for my music.

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

I don't use old music.

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

Steinberg is great. I should like to meet him.

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.

I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists.

I think a composer is always interested in his last work.

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

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

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

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

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

Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, it's not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape.