I am writing something which I find satisfying and which I am prepared to put my name to as a composer.

There's another way of making music, by touching the lives and feelings of ordinary people.

The academic area of new music or modern music festivals is not something which attracts me at all.

Still, American composers working in France have had a pretty hard time.

I have friends who have a CD mastering plant in Hollywood and they are very sceptical about European record labels' understanding of digital technology.

Similarly you can make a transition from one set of instruments to another imperceptibly.

Music history has flowed under the bridges for many years.

I remember once, when I started writing for the alto saxophone, a saxophonist told me to think of it as being like a cross between an oboe and a viola, but louder.

Writing tonal music now, you are not writing into the 19th Century.

It's rather like attending a university seminar where you are talking to a few gifted specialists who deliver a paper to an audience of their peers. That's one way of making music.

One thing I'm doing on the new Titanic recording is actually bringing in different acoustic spaces.

If it weren't for the animals waiting for her, she wouldn't bother getting out of bed. Then, room service was a little lacking when you lived alone.

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself.

For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.

Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life

Two years? That's entirely too long. If you want, we can take care of that. After two years it's pure therapy.

Being evil is something that only humans are capable of.

The Supreme Court has never ruled that the children of illegal aliens are American citizens.

Shut the door of that house of pleasure which you hear resounding with the loud voice of a woman.

Laughter... is like a hurricane: once it reaches a certain point, it becomes self-feeding, self-supporting. You laugh not because the jokes are funny but because your own condition is funny.