I always write the pieces I want to write.

This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it.

The thing about influence is that any composer worth anything will give you the same names.

It's the irrational things that interest me.

When I was confronted with official tuition, the academic thing, I could see no relationship whatever between that and the music I'd been writing since I was 11.

When I was a kid, I wrote music - from the age of 11 until the age of 18.

My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.