Quotes by Alan Hovhaness

• I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.
• This is not to say that the Scots are not fine people, but they were all sort of... well, my grandfather was a minister and sort of Protestant, and this was rather depressing to me.
• There were periods when I sometimes made fires in a large, open fireplace that lasted about two weeks, which was how long it took to burn my compositions. So there has been an awful lot that I have destroyed.
• There is nothing like practice.
• No, no, I didn't know him. He lost his mind around 1917 because of the tragedy of the Armenians.
• My mother's background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland.
• I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God.
• I was born in Somerville, but I don't remember very much about it because we moved from there to Arlington when I was five years old, and it was in Arlington that I spent most of my childhood.
• I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.
• I found a greater identity with my own emotions in the Armenian culture as I grew older, as well as from the beginning, although I didn't know anything about it.
• I did all kinds of things in order to earn a living.
• It's hard for me to think of others because I'm not particularly in sympathy with the music of this century.