There is something inherent in our democracy that tends to want to level. America is a little uncomfortable in the presence of someone who is distinctly superior in whatever way.

It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.

We think the Puritans always dressed in black and white, which they didn't. They loved very bright colors. And there were other differences in perceptions that gave one a very different view of them.

Our most intimate contact with civilizations long since dust has been through the art which has survived them.

I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.

The story of Willie Stark fascinated me because it was tackling the story of a man who outwardly has all the success one could possibly want and who is destroyed by his personal demons.

Most of the important composers in our country are clustered in the Northeast.

If something is successful with the audience, it's automatically suspect; the reverse is to say that not to reach audiences is the greatest compliment an artist can receive!

What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds.

If an American audience is given a serious musical theater piece that is well produced, dramatically gripping and wonderfully acted, they'll respond to it.

I find it enormously valuable to be sure that that the pacing is what I think it is and that the scenes have the shape I think they have musically and dramatically.

Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.

She’d never seen such a thing back on Grave

Women right now, we can't make mediocre [stuff]. Men can and do make tons of mediocre stuff, but I feel like women.

In the dust where we have buried the silent races and their abominations we have buried so much of the delicate magic of life.

[Commercial] radio is absolutely the enemy of music. They are my sworn and mortal enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them.

I mostly make R-rated movies. To make a movie that one day if I have kids or my nephews want t watch, I can show them without being put in prison. It would be really nice.

In 1978, I entered Tohoku University, into the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Technology.

He that sees another in error and endeavors not to correct it, testifies himself to be in error.

I love dressing up. I'm from a huge African family and grew up in a really colorful place. The way I dress reflects my environment and wanting to take people into a fantasy world for half an hour.

People get frightened that success is going to take them out of life. They're no longer going to be on the corner of Bedlam and Squalor; life will only be something you can get through the mail.