I always write the pieces I want to write.

I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.

I didn't have a record player.

I don't have ideas so much as there are things which constantly evolve... there are various threads or layers, if you like, which change.

When I was confronted with official tuition, the academic thing, I could see no relationship whatever between that and the music I'd been writing since I was 11.

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.

The theatre only knows what it's doing next week, not like the opera, where they say: 'What are we going to do in five years' time?' A completely different attitude.

Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me.

Minimalism now is a reaction to what came before. It's absolutely of its time. Music moved into the set theory thing, and moved out of it.

The thing about influence is that any composer worth anything will give you the same names.

There is pain in being a woman, yes, but there is pride in it, too.

Anthropologists have found evidence of romantic love in 170 societies. They've never found a society that did not have it.

We drink and we die and continue to drink.

Unfortunately the student often feels guilt for not living the type of life that their Teacher suggested, or they feel that they are intrinsically bad and incapable of leading a higher life.

There is an alternative. It's an old alternative. It's not for everybody. It's only for people who are smart, limited market. It's enlightenment.

I love creativity, with no fear of what people think.

I wish I could tell you it gets better. It doesn't get better. YOU get better.

In any survival situation, you need to weigh the risk and the reward.

When you're nursing and you're working 18-hour days, that's pretty hard

A thin line separates destiny from coincidence.