They wanted me to be a concert pianist, because I had a very good right hand, but my left hand's terrible and I hated performing.

I didn't really want to write just lyrics, but I wanted to meet Leonard Bernstein. Music was always the first reason I was writing songs.

Teaching is a sacred profession. And art is a form of teaching.

I played the organ when I went to military school, when I was 10. They had a huge organ, the second-largest pipe organ in New York State. I loved all the buttons and the gadgets. I've always been a gadget man.

That's the trouble with awards for a body of work. They always come at both a good time and a wrong time. Good because they tell you what you've been doing was worth the doing and wrong because they ought to come when you're young and excited and hungry for assurance that what you're doing is worth the doing.

Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.

The only reason to write is from love.