Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.

Los Angeles is just a more open place. The way L.A. functions is that people give you a forum. They say, Show us what you can do.

I actually don't like this term, "classic." It's wrong, but we don't have a better word at the moment.

Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course.

The underlying process in Northern music tends to be slower and continuous, whatever's happening on the surface; in Southern music the underlying process is always faster.

I think truth as an idea should be left to the philosophers and perhaps religious leaders and politicians, and professional people who deal with that idea.

There is more openness in LA to possibilities than on the East Coast of America. There is a pioneering spirit there that stems from the reason people went out there in the first place-to find something new.