It's amazing how fast generations lose sight of other generations. One of the first things the young composers who come to work with me say is that they want to write music people will like, instead of gaining their credentials by being rejected by the audience.

It's necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you're dealing with more than one or two characters, it's very easy to forget that the others have lives of their own that feed into the story.

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

If I felt that one of my operas did not come off I would certainly say so.

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

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