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

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

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

Socially I never was an outsider. I have never thought of the conflict element before frankly, but perhaps it was wanting to belong, and at the same time wanting to retain one's own personality.

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.

It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.

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