For instance, if I see an old lady in the street, I just see an old lady and that’s it. But her husband will see layers and layers of her extending backwards in time from now to when she was a young girl that he was in love with in the summer of 1920. It’s a very beautiful way of looking at someone. He doesn’t just see this moment, but endless successions of moments. We all do this to varying degrees to people we see, and the more we know them, the more multi-faceted the perception of them becomes.

from Polyphony magazine, December 1983 – rest of the interview on Benge’s blog.