Well, because music is my life and music is not work for me.

After the war, once the bop revolution had taken hold, there were all kinds of young musicians, talented young musicians, who were ready for this fusion of classical and jazz.

If we could ever find that moment, maybe thousands of years from now, where all the musics of the worlds would be communicating with each other, there would be no more wars, there would be peace.

As rich as Cincinnati was in live music, New York was even more.

So this anchoring in some way, in some important way in the past without repeating the past, but on the basis of the past building something new: that is what is important.

If you mess around with jazz, you better have a good drummer and a good bass player.

Many people think of me as a modernist, as a radical in music, you know, someone who's always sort of at the avant-garde of musics, but I'm also quite a traditionalist.

Symphony musicians are not trained in improvising, certainly not in a jazz style.

I don't hate work, composing is not work for me, it's my pleasure; it's my life. So why should I stop? If something is pleasurable and exciting and rewarding, why should one stop?

I was playing in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as principal horn. I was there for some 15 years - one of the most exciting and great musical periods in my life.

My primary calling, I always knew since the age of 11, was as a composer, and so that had to take priority.

I can chase you, and I can catch you, but there is nothing I can do to make you mine.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide.

You should be accumulating really great relationships throughout your career.

Wise people say it is folly to think anybody perfect; and as to likes and dislikes, we should be friendly to all, and worship none

I don't try to knock 'em out, I just know I will

Every actress has to face the facts there are younger, more beautiful girls right behind you. Once you've gone beyond the vanity of the business, you'll take on the tough roles.

Embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important.

I want young people to see me and think you can be feminine and smart and successful, all at the same time.

Great leaders don't see themselves as great; they see themselves as human.

Time sheds a softness on remote objects or events, as local distance imparts to the landscape a smoothness and mellowness which disappear on a nearer approach.