Sometimes you spend nine months, 10 months, a year writing a piece that you will hear two years later or something like that, and you never see anybody. It's a very different sort of metabolic.

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.

Love is many kind acts accumulated over time that leave us feeling wonderful.

Most of your innovation is hiding in plain sight, you are institutionally blinded by your legacy systems and culture.

What she did was like the people stirring up the riots in Egypt and Libya, said my liberal brother John Flaherty. Just say anything without even caring if it is true. That is how riots start.

Boxing is going to have to catch up with the kind of things UFC is doing. They're getting left behind.

Cute" is one of those words people use when they know you're smart enough to realize "you've got so much personality" means "you're ugly.

To reach a port we must set sail

Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older.

I need something fun to get my mind off of pretending to die and I didn't have any squibs under water.

If you believe you are guilty and deserve to be punished, you are asking for it!

Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.