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.

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.

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.

As long as I'm healthy and can keep going that's what I'll do.

I think the rest of the world is not as cold and lonely a place as you think. At least I have to hope.

You cannot separate passion from pathology any more than you can separate a person's spirit from his body.

I welcome challenges. I triumph on them, it helps me grow. Without the challenges that I have faced, I may not be where I am at all.

I would say I'm a nice person, and I take pride in the fact that I treat everyone really well, so there's no reason for anyone to ever come at me because I only want the best for everybody else.

No local church can afford to go without the encouragement and nourishment that will come to it by sending away its best people.

In "Twilight," the narratives are more literal, and the event is much more spectacular. The pictures in "Beneath the Roses" are much more psychological and grounded in reality.

When life has gone into overtime it's easy to take liberties.

The world is solely occupied by a questioner and a philosopher.

Facts are, insurance ratings are really dependent on the notion that some people are higher risk than others.

I never wanted to be that person who leaves 'SNL' and nothing happens.