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

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 was encouraged by my mother and, to a lesser extent, by my father.

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 was trying to do something that seemed very natural and easy but which bridged that gulf between the singing voice and the speaking voice.

People in very high places suddenly fall, and we are always surprised because we don't factor in the basic element that they're humans and, therefore, they are flawed and have weaknesses.

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