I wanted to be a painter and an artist. And it's interesting that in some of my later musical works, I refer so often and associate myself with works of art.

After the war, once the bop revolution had taken hold, there were all kinds of young musicians, talented young musicians, who were ready for this fusion of classical and jazz.

If we could ever find that moment, maybe thousands of years from now, where all the musics of the worlds would be communicating with each other, there would be no more wars, there would be peace.

As rich as Cincinnati was in live music, New York was even more.

So this anchoring in some way, in some important way in the past without repeating the past, but on the basis of the past building something new: that is what is important.

If you mess around with jazz, you better have a good drummer and a good bass player.

Many people think of me as a modernist, as a radical in music, you know, someone who's always sort of at the avant-garde of musics, but I'm also quite a traditionalist.

Symphony musicians are not trained in improvising, certainly not in a jazz style.

I don't hate work, composing is not work for me, it's my pleasure; it's my life. So why should I stop? If something is pleasurable and exciting and rewarding, why should one stop?

I was playing in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as principal horn. I was there for some 15 years - one of the most exciting and great musical periods in my life.

My primary calling, I always knew since the age of 11, was as a composer, and so that had to take priority.

Bringing science into poetry is one way of acknowledging some of the richest stuff that is in my cultural moment.

I got into comedy so I could stay out all night.

In the end, it's always a single person who makes change. But I do think we should try to send artists out into the world and not have them all stick together in the big cities.

Sometimes you have to be a bad person to save yourself, and it takes a little chunk out of your soul, but you do it anyway.

The thing about Barack Obama, just from being around him, is he's cooler than the other politicians, but just nerdy enough to do the job. Like you can't be really cool and be the president.

Nothing is a better icebreaker than a great joke.

Shake off the self-pity, shake off the defeat and get ready for God to do something new. He is going to pay you back for every injustice.

Sometimes I call directors. Sometimes I just meet with them. It just happens. It's not that I'm pushy. It comes naturally. But I go ahead. I don't stay in my armchair, waiting for the phone to ring.

I love big budgeted, epic rock landscapes. That's what turns me on.

We've gone through the operating system and looked at everything and asked how can we simplify this and make it more powerful at the same time.