To be a success as a Broadway composer, you must be Jewish or gay. I'm both.

Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own.

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.

Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's - the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering - a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages.

Any asshole can write a tone-row. It takes a composer to write a tune.

I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees.