The greater the emotional intensity, the greater the simplicity.

The composer...joins Heaven and Earth with threads of sounds.

I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God.

My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing. To attempt what old Chinese painters called 'spirit resonance' in melody and sound.

I found a greater identity with my own emotions in the Armenian culture as I grew older, as well as from the beginning, although I didn't know anything about it.

This is not to say that the Scots are not fine people, but they were all sort of... well, my grandfather was a minister and sort of Protestant, and this was rather depressing to me.

It's hard for me to think of others because I'm not particularly in sympathy with the music of this century.

I was born in Somerville, but I don't remember very much about it because we moved from there to Arlington when I was five years old, and it was in Arlington that I spent most of my childhood.

My mother's background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland.

To me, atonality is against nature. There is a center to everything that exists. The planets have the sun, the earth, the moon.

I did all kinds of things in order to earn a living.

The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

People don't know to make a leaf, but they know how to destroy one.

Hollywood continues to present the US army as being the good guys, always defeating the aliens or foreigners.

Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.

Every person who will learn the right way, and who will then continue diligently to follow that right way, is absolutely certain in time to possess great riches and all attending blessings.

No one is going to beat the crap out of me more than me.

If we have access to nuclear energy, that adds to our maneuverability in ensuring energy security as India marches on, on the path to accelerated development.

You're really playing against yourself. You have to learn what you can control and what you can't, and not let what you can't control affect your confidence.

A man with courage has every blessing.

If you're going to write something, that's going to be read by people, a lot of people, you hope it will not only entertain them but maybe do them some good in some way.