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.

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.

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.

My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

In angry protest the red telephone splintered the silence.

The lord has already provided everything that we need and all the necessary conditions needed to help us to succeed

No matter what your circumstances are, whether you are in prosperity or in adversity, you can learn from every person, transaction, and circumstance around you.

the beauty of America, neither cool jazz nor devoured Egyptian heroes, lies in lives in the darkness I inhabit in the midst of sterile millions

Consciousness is the creative element in the universe. Without it, nothing would appear.

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.

The Span of Life is too short to be trifled away in unconcerning and unprofitable Matters.

God is not good, or else he could do better.

Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing

One day the 'Maple Leaf' will make me King of Ragtime Composers.