The performances of my works in the last 10 years are probably equal to all the previous years put together. There are so many venues now and there is a completely new public for opera that's grown up outside of the traditional core opera public.

You can't possibly predict what will last or not. But once you attempt to write for the ages, you're doomed.

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

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.

What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds.

America tends to worship the modest talent because it doesn't put us in an uncomfortable position vis-a-vis the artist.

Our most intimate contact with civilizations long since dust has been through the art which has survived them.