Yes, I get a report from BMI about the frequency of performances, and it is very surprising. They played one of my most advanced pieces, and one of my most unusual ones on the radio.

Yes, I get a report from BMI about the frequency of performances, and it is very surprising. They played one of my most advanced pieces, and one of my most unusual ones on the radio.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My entire life has really revolved around music that was written about the time that I was born, 1908, to just before the First World War and shortly after it. This music I've always known, and it is that music that's most important to me.

Silences between movements are employed only in order to bring the opposing duo to the fore.

Right at the end of the war I wrote a piano sonata, which was written at a time when Sam Barber used to come down here and we used to have lunch together in a very nice old hotel that's now not there.

That was one of the big problems when I was at Harvard studying music. We had to write choral pieces in the style of Brahms or Mendelssohn, which was distressing because in the end you realized how good Brahms is, and how bad you are.

Almost every one of my various zero numbered birthdays has had a big concert in London and often in Paris.

I've known those pieces ever since I was about 16 or 17; I also at that time was taken to meet Charles Ives whom I got to know fairly well. He was the one who wrote a recommendation for me to get into college.

It was only later on that I became more interested in older music.

When I was in Paris, all of the German refugees began to flow in and it was a very sad time.

Talking about a materialistic thing, I get about 13 times more royalties from Europe than I do from America.

These wealthy people were very interested in contemporary music. They wanted to help diffuse it and get it to be known to other people.

The Quartets have been a major part of my work.

I mean the public likes it more in Europe than they do here because the state supported organizations have felt that playing contemporary music was part of the education of the public.

Then, when the Depression came, all of this changed completely. Since that time, the entire public is of a very different sort and there was not so much support for contemporary music in a direct way.

Well I tried to, but I could never write anything that I liked or was worthwhile. I threw it all out and realized that I had to make a serious study- that my tastes were far more advanced than my abilities.

In any case, Ives encouraged me to go into music even though he himself had such a hard time being a composer.

An auditory scenario for the players to act out with their instruments.

Why write for the orchestra? For one thing it's a very challenging problem.

Aaron Copland was a man that had a very specific point of view about what music should be which was that, he felt that new music should have the composer should show a personality in his music.

Well when I was young, when I was very young, when I was a little boy I don't remember the music I heard, but there was an article in the Brooklyn Daily written by my Aunt about how I could choose phonograph records.

The Third Quartet I made the instruments in pairs - Two different pairs - Violin and viola, and violin and cello. They played very different things from each other all through the whole piece.

If I could change one thing about myself I'd be less highly strung. I find my sensibility quite high maintenance.

With human beings it could be argued that all music-making is, in essence, grounded in improvisation.

Local color has a fatal tendency to remain local; but it is also true that the universal often borders on the void.

There's a few tunes of mine that don't have jokes, but most of them have a joke and they have a humorous point of view somewhere.

I'd managed to bite a very large hole in the side of my tongue before they could pry my teeth apart. By all evidence, and there's no denying it, that thing I had on the set was a fit.

Each organism, no matter how simple or complex, has around it a sacred bubble of space, a bit of mobile territoriality which only a few other organisms are allowed to penetrate and then only for short periods of time.

The critical reaction to 'Bloom' has been similar to 'Brick.' There are people on board with it and people who are not.

I've finally recognized my body for what it is: a personality-delivery system, designed expressly to carry my character from place to place, now and in the years to come.

The popular tendency is to listen approvingly to the most extreme statements and claims of politicians and orators who seek popularity by declaring their own country right in everything and other countries wrong in everything.

The last person they expected to connect with a screenplay was the comedic, blonde actress with the funny voice.

Some would suggest that there has been a dramatic change in our perception of the world and ourselves within the world. Others have observed that there has been an almost complete about-face in a relatively short span of time.

Worrying won't prevent the worst outcome. I've learned to live in the moment, which is not my natural tendency. I've always thought that if I worried about something enough, it wouldn't happen. I forgot to worry about Parkinson's.

I think the rise of China is one of the great events of all economic and human history, and I think this will be overwhelmingly a positive thing for the region and the world.

In comedy, though, it's good to get feedback from the audience about what they find funny.

Because the world is radically new, the ideal encyclopedia should be radical, too.

I get nervous for everything - literally everything.

As the web becomes more and more of a part of our every day lives, it would be a horrible tragedy if it was locked up inside of companies and proprietary software.

People want to marry me for companionship. No thanks! I've got my cats for that!

Yeah, my dream would be to work for 6 months and then have 6 months to play, just snowboarding, surfing, and going to cool places to listen and be alone and kinda chill out.

A good designer has technical knowledge - don't treat her like someone who's there to decide whether something should be pink or orange.

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.

Bracketing has turned all my experiences, remembered and present, into a gallery of miracles where I wander around dazzled by the beauty of events I cannot explain.

We must go beyond the constant clamor of ego, beyond the tools of logic and reason, to the still, calm place within us: the realm of the soul.

The Earth isn't an infinite sheet that carries on for ever, but it doesn't have an edge, either. It's compact and connected.