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.

Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course.

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.

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

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.

For us to regard others as worthy, we have to begin by regarding ourselves as worthy.

However bad life may seem, where there is life, there is hope.

Don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.

Gratitude is a joyful act.

Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him and cannot be reasoned out.

I didn't completed my University Education

Even the klan revamped their image by losing the hoods and changing their name to the Tea Party.

Birds, except when broiled and in the society of a cold bottle, bored him stiff.

I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly.

I've never heard of a size 0 or a negative human. That's hard. A lot of girls aren't naturally built that way.