Los Angeles is just a more open place. The way L.A. functions is that people give you a forum. They say, Show us what you can do.

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.

Until people learn to love others more than they love to hate others, not much will change in this world.

It's odd that men feel they must protect women, since for the most part they must be protected from men.

Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.

My brother is what got me into the show business. So it's a really great relationship we have. Our whole family is - we're thick as thieves.

Chefs aren't celebrities: they're chefs.

Trouble travels fast / When you're specially designed for crash testing / Or wearing wool sunglasses in the afternoon.

All in all, we might think we like choice, but the question of which choices count and which do not is very, very tricky.

There is not an alternative to the US as the engine for growth.

It's time to start bringing the congregations down to City Hall and to ask the mayors, the city councils and the school boards, "What's the plan? What's the local government going to do for us?"