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.

Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.

I think anything that is expressed directly and as honestly as possible will last.

I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.

The artist is something of an outsider in America. I have always felt that America does not value its artists, certainly not in the sense that the Europeans do.

I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.

Most of the important composers in our country are clustered in the Northeast.