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.

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!

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.

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.

Most people are ennobled by the actual presence of death. But how long do you suppose this nobility will last in him?

Now, evolution is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links not seen.

I prepare for a shoot by saturating my brain with images that have different moods or expressions.

What does it mean to have a Republican majority in the House? A lot of people think So what? They should think again.

No artist knows in his own lifetime whether what he does will be the slightest good, because it takes at least seventy-five to a hundred years before the thing begins to sort itself out.

Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.

As you know, the thing that I know the least about is the topic of sports.

Where I live in Manhattan and where I work at ABC, people say conservative the way people say child molester.

While we may open the books of the past, we may but grant flying glances of the future, through the mist that veils it.

Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.