This country, and the West Coast, especially, is bad at preserving any cultural legacy.

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.

The world has many places that can make us uncomfortable. Calling them evil, or any other bad name, doesn’t make them go away.

Being a good example is the best form of service.

Death kills us once

Like a garden that is carefully tended, the rewards are well worth the effort.

I've never been too afraid of what other people have said, especially when I was younger, but I suppose that was the arrogance of youth.

There are athletes and celebrities that are out there and they Twitter and they constantly try to drum up press because they're narcissists.

It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.

It is the black poet who bridges the gap in tradition, who modifies tradition when experience demands it, who translates experience into meaning and meaning into belief.

The Anasazi did manage to construct in stone the largest and tallest buildings erected in North America until the Chicago steel girder skyscrapers of the 1880s.

I will steal your dreams tonight. Dark