I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.

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

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

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.

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.

I find it enormously valuable to be sure that that the pacing is what I think it is and that the scenes have the shape I think they have musically and dramatically.

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