Toru Takemitsu quotes:

Although I am basically self taught, I consider Debussy my teacher - the most important elements are colour, light and shadow.

Music should be able to invoke the natural emotions in all human beings. Music is not notes fixed on apiece of paper.

The art music of the West has developed through out its history by means of individual geniuses, and out of the soil supporting them; non-Western musicians were born, and grew like the grasses of the field.

Composition gives proper meaning to the natural streams of sound that penetrate the world.

My teachers are Duke Ellington and nature.

Music is a form of prayer.

I always want to write erotic music... Not only about the love between men and women, but in a much more universal sense - about the sensuality of the mechanism of the universe... about life.

I probably belong to a type of composer of songs who keeps thinking about melody... I am old fashioned.

I am a gardener of infinite time.