This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it.

I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.

I didn't have a record player.

I don't have ideas so much as there are things which constantly evolve... there are various threads or layers, if you like, which change.

When I was confronted with official tuition, the academic thing, I could see no relationship whatever between that and the music I'd been writing since I was 11.

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.

The theatre only knows what it's doing next week, not like the opera, where they say: 'What are we going to do in five years' time?' A completely different attitude.

Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me.

Minimalism now is a reaction to what came before. It's absolutely of its time. Music moved into the set theory thing, and moved out of it.

The thing about influence is that any composer worth anything will give you the same names.

Love seeks the best. Love endures all times. Love never changes.

From bigots who hawk their goddoor-to-door, preserve us.

The forest did not tolerate frailty of body or mind. Show your weakness, and it would consume you without hesitation.

When I am idle and shiftless my affairs become confused when I work I get results ... not great results but enough to encourage me.

My uncle was an Elvis impersonator - his name was Perry, and he went by 'Elvis Perry' - and my work as a wedding singer landed me a spot in his act.

Because success is such a weasel word anyway, it's such a horribly American word, and it's such a vamp and, I think it's a death trap.

There is nothing which so certifies the genuineness of a man's faith as his patience and his patient endurance, his keeping on steadily in spite of everything.

You can make a good living while serving a greater good.

We live in a free country. While patriotism is important, liberty of thought and liberty of expression are even more important.

Witches aren’t like that. We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.