I did take composition lessons when I was in high school, so I wrote piano pieces. I wrote some chamber music. I don't think any of that was particularly interesting.

Strangely, the thing I listen to 75% of the time, when I'm exercising with my headphones on is English Tudor/Elizabethan music, so music from about 1450 to the early 1600's.

I like the idea of imagining a sound and feeling a sound and then having it come out through your body, through an instrument. That's an important way to make music.

My work on hyper instruments started with simple instruments, like the piano.

The one obvious thing is that the devices are so good now that you can also see their limitations extremely well.

My message is to forget about dichotomies. The Brain Opera is an opera, even if it does not tell a story in the usual way. It is a psychological journey with voices - so I do consider it an opera.

Why does every society seem to want to make music when it often seems like kind of a frill.

Nobody talks about music as having intrinsic meaning, how it engages the mind.

Works of art should be stimulating. They should wake people up rather than acting like a sedative.

There's many reason music exists and we are beginning to no only understand that, but measure that.

There's just an incredibly rich and interesting relationship between our listening to music and the way our minds engage.

God does not change us in order to love us. He loves us in order to change us.

I think film and television are really a director's medium, whereas theatre is the actor's medium.

A theatre, a literature, an artistic expression that does not speak for its own time has no relevance.

There goes Juantorena down the back straight, opening his legs and showing his class

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up

I just broke up with my boyfriend, and I've been spending more time alone than I'd like.

A nervous breakdown waits around the corner for anyone who lets himself wallow in bitterness. Little by little, it takes over your whole being.

When have you ever seen someone who had no doubts who was also correct about anything?

My father Philip was an actor and appeared in everything from 'The Onedin Line' to 'Hedda Gabler' with Dame Diana Rigg.

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.