My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.

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.

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 underlying process in Northern music tends to be slower and continuous, whatever's happening on the surface; in Southern music the underlying process is always faster.

Success dwells in a neighbourhood that can only be explored through failure, and it is through perfect knowledge of that neighbourhood that we gain perfect knowledge of her address

Research has shown that the perceived style of leadership is by far the most important thing to most voters in evaluating officeholders and candidates.

We want all the Palestinians back in their homeland, and then there can be a fair referendum for people to choose the form of state they want. Whoever gets the majority can rule.

You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier.

There are three unfilial acts: the greatest of these is the failure to produce sons.

Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world: As star at dawn, a bubble in a stream A flash of lightning in a summer cloud A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream

Should you protect profits? Yes. But run for the hills? No.

I could go to London in 2012. I will only be 37.

I'm not sure what Al Gore did for peace. I don't think he have been high on my list for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.