Our industry [classic music] has kind of retarded into this kind of endless cover-producing thing, and it's a pity.

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.

She and I were bound together at the border between life and death. It was like that for us from the start

There are no standards and no possible victories except the joy you are living while dancing your run. You are not running for some future reward-the real reward is now!

It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser.

We are always learning from each others. Only when we merge inside God would we stop learning. We will understand more as we teach others, so we rely on teaching in order to learn for ourselves.

You should never do two things. You should hammer one nail all your life, and I didn't do that; I hammered on a lot of nails like a xylophone.

I like doing both comedy and drama. I'm not really feeling more drawn to one over the other. I also like dramedies. I like movies and TV shows that are mixtures of the two.

Although the power is lacking, the will is commendable.

I have had some trouble in regarding evil as having been intended by infinite Goodness.

Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men, nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.