If you think about how long it takes to write a piece of music for an orchestra, it's outrageous to me, outrageous.

My obligation is to release the music the way Frank [Zappa] released it.

When you have a single composer writing his work, it shouldn't be doled out in singles based on the length of a piece.

Frank [Zappa] said he probably would have been a major criminal, given his brain power and his attention to detail, had he not been a composer. But being a composer is not something you can't help.

It's one thing to write the music, it's another thing to write it down, it's another thing to play it, and something else altogether again to learn how to play it. These are the elements that are fascinating, and, you know, move my world.

If you've ever had to recall your past in some way and you open a drawer of old photographs that your parents kept, there are always pictures of you smiling and charming, and then a bunch of people you don't know who they are. Could be aunts, uncles, could be the postman for all you know. Who are these people? Your parents are never in the picture, because they are the ones taking them. So you've got these unrelated images that are disconnected from your memories.

The problem with composers is that they are the most unrequired job in America.