The theatre only knows what it's doing next week, not like the opera, where they say: 'What are we going to do in five years' time?' A completely different attitude.

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

When I dealt with set theory, I could never make it be the music that I wanted.

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.

I don't think there is much American music.

I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.

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