I think we are in the process of getting the word out, and we haven't done very well yet. But we are trying.

Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course.

There will have to be times when I'm not conducting because I'm composing. I haven't solved that problem, and perhaps I never will.

Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.

As we watch TV or films, there are no organic transitions, only edits. The idea of A becoming B, rather than A jumping to B, has become foreign.

The act of conducting in itself, of waving my arms in the air and being in charge, I didn't miss. I missed the sensual pleasure of being in contact with music.

My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience.

I discovered that the people of the North are different and there's no way you can make a person from the North similar to a Southerner. They're two different worlds.

I feel very free and very happy to be a composer.

The closer we come to the negative, to death, the more we blossom.

It is critical that kids start to learn the value of money, short-term and long-term saving and budgeting at an early age.

I'm not trying to stump anybody... it's the beauty of the language that I'm interested in.

You have to see through one's faults before you see their need.

I'll remind you one more time, I've treated a lot of vegans for heart disease.

I'm the master of low expectations.

As it turns out, you can function while your heart is being torn to shreds.

I commanded a naval gunboat patrolling the Mekong Delta. Then when I came home after two tours of duty, I decided that the same sense of service demanded something more of me.

It turns out that, somehow, there are a tremendous number of things to be optimistic about.

Virtue could see to do what Virtue would by her own radiant light, though sun and moon where in the flat sea sunk.