I'm not an architectural composer.

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.

Giving back feeds the heart

If you want it, work for it.

At one point in your life you have to decide whether you want to become a sachem or a solitary.

A model’s opinion seldom matters. The only time that he is required to open his mouth is when he is required to smile at the camera.

The beauty of art is that it comes from the heart.

Make everyday decisions from a place of love.

The average man can't prove most of the things that he chooses to speak of, and still won't research and find out the root of the truth that you seek of

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns Its fragrant lamps, and turns Into a royal court with green festoons The banks of dark lagoons.

I usually don't get this pretty at 3 o'clock.

I have always liked the Kennedys as politicians. They had such great hair.