I think it's a great handicap to be discovered at an early age. I didn't have that burden of early success. I had the much more livable and durable career where success comes late, and comes slowly, and you ease into it. So by the time it comes, you're ready to deal with it.

If you remember your lineage, you will never feel lonely.

I've been called a minimalist composer for more than 30 years, and while I've never really agreed with the description, I've gotten used to it.

What you hear depends on how you focus your ear. We're not talking about inventing a new language, but rather inventing new perceptions of existing languages.

I, as a young guy getting out of music school, I didn't like the prospect of spending my life writing music for about 200 people.

A new language requires a new technique. If what you're saying doesn't require a new language, then what you're saying probably isn't new.

The problem with listening, of course, is that we don't. There's too much noise going on in our heads, so we never hear anything. The inner conversation simply never stops. It can be our voice or whatever voices we want to supply, but it's a constant racket. In the same way we don't see, and in the same way we don't feel, we don't touch, we don't taste.