People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me.

One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

It's the irrational things that interest me.

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.

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.

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