One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

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.

People keep on saying, "Don't Think Much." Is it underrated? You can't be creative enough unless you make a thoughtful process by collaborating your conscience and consciousness

The more aspects of life that can be moved from private reign to public realm, the better it is for politics.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

I dont want to be compared to Brad Pitt because I dont want to, you know, disappoint anybody. Brad Pitt is an icon.

The remedy now is two scotches and an aspirin, I think.

It's complicated.' 'So's quantitative easing. But I still get that it means printing money.

I sense a thousand strands of sorrow are sewn into an inch of my spirit.

Everything ends badly, otherwise it would not end.

Nothing is a hobby - each discipline is its own world with its own high standards. Of course, every artist has 'minor works' that they do, but I don't think I have any 'minor disciplines.'

I think a lot of my dreams have come true, and my next dream is to have a No. 1 selling album. A Grammy-award-winning album.