Our most intimate contact with civilizations long since dust has been through the art which has survived them.

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.

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.

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.

In my darkness time, God splendour light shines my path.

When preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it's done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human.

Yes, people pull the trigger - but guns are the instrument of death. Gun control is necessary, and delay means more death and horror.

We shouldn't blame the Panama programme for the World Cup bid failing

Learning is not the accumulation of knowledge. Learning is movement from moment to moment.

It is - last stage of all When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man

The world is full of smart, poor people.

It's not what you are in Hollywood - it's what people think you are.

I don't want to talk about negative, dark things. The only thing I've got against stuff like Marilyn Manson is, they make unbelievable videos and unbelievable images.