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.

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.

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.

My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

We women talk too much, but even then we don't tell half what we know.

There are people out there waiting for you. Indeed, you are the only one who can bring joy in the heart of people. Yes, sometimes only with one smile.

The real turning point in human history is less apt to be the day the wheel is invented or Rome falls than the day a boy is born to a couple of hick Jews.

Fear never leaves you. It just adapts to you. And that’s the meaning of strengthening a warrior spirit from within, as you can’t fight all your battles with the same weapons.

It’s good to want God to speak to you, but smarter to let God speak through you, because when God speaks through you, more than one can hear.

I have often wondered why the sounds of the beating drums do not make the marching soldiers shoot their officers and go home.

We know we can't stop every act of violence, every act of evil in the world, but maybe we could try to stop one act of evil, one act of violence.

My parents are divorced, and that was the last thing I wanted for myself. I waited until I was 36 to propose, and I'm really proud of that.

I don't think I've ever tried to change anyone. I don't have the energy.

It is not proven, it's not science. It's more of a religion than a science.