People ask what was the first piece of music I wrote. There was no first piece.

I was a catastrophe at Science and Games, but the good thing about Quaker schools is that they encourage you in those subjects for which you show an aptitude.

I am proud to be able to claim that, from the age of nineteen, I've managed to earna living entirely as a composer.

When I came across something I liked, I wanted to find out as much as I could about it. This was as true of hearing Hoagy Carmichael for the first time as it was later when I first heard Boulez.

I realized very early that I was never going to make by living by writing string quartets. But I wanted to write music and I didn't want to have to do anything else.

I hated teaching composition. I was playing music I didn't particularly want to play, being on committees I didn't want to be on.

Being on a musical quest was something I always enjoyed.

I just scribbled away and eventually a C-major chord was there. I didn't ever decide I was going to be a composer. It was like being tall. It's what I was. It's what I did.

I wanted to write music, and cook, and play cards, and have a nice time.

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

All positive interactions with other human beings involve, to some degree, the experience of visibility-- that is, the experience of being seen and understood.

I never think that I am the one who must see to it that cherries grow on stalks

The effects of human wickedness are written on the page of history in characters of blood: but the impression soon fades away; so more blood must be shed to renew it.

I'm not sure if [Hillary Clinton] means it or not. But she says no boots on the ground. She has taken a tremendous - I mean, that's really giving strength to the enemy.

His Cheek is his Biographer- As long as he can blush.

fang will be the first to die

I would vote for you for President but I'm against big government.

The only truly anonymous donor is the guy who knocks up your daughter.

Nylon string is still a new love and I'm not tired of it yet.