One does not devote one's life in art to shock an audience.

I realized that I had to be honest about where I was, where I was coming from, and what I was trying to do.

Because even at the age of fifteen, I used to go see all the Broadway shows and feel that they were sentimental, that they were pandering to the audience and trying to manipulate the audience. I had no use for practically any of the shows that were hits.

It's true, I don't like the real world.

You know, actually, I went to Yale because I wanted to stay out of the army.

I'm there to make a kind of theatrical music that is desperately missing in my life. And if other people don't like it, I'm very unhappy, but I can't do anything about that.

I was enchanted by the escape into that meticulous world that seemed real yet not... well, it seemed not real, but very detailed and meticulous, bizarre.