I always write the pieces I want to write.

The theatre only knows what it's doing next week, not like the opera, where they say: What are we going to do in five years' time? A completely different attitude.

I didn't have a record player.

I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

It's the irrational things that interest me.

I don't have ideas so much as there are things which constantly evolve... there are various threads or layers, if you like, which change.

Minimalism now is a reaction to what came before. It's absolutely of its time. Music moved into the set theory thing, and moved out of it.

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.

This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it.

When I was a kid, I wrote music - from the age of 11 until the age of 18.

I don't think there is much American music.

Music is such a problem in the time it takes.

One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

I always write the pieces I want to write.

I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.

I'm not an architectural composer.

My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.

I'm not a music lover in the sense that I look for something to have on. I've never had that attitude to music.

People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me.

The piece that had a large influence on me was Turangalila.

My attitude to writing is like when you do wallpapering, you remember where all the little bits are that don't meet. And then your friends say: It's terrific!

When I was confronted with official tuition, the academic thing, I could see no relationship whatever between that and the music I'd been writing since I was 11.

When I dealt with set theory, I could never make it be the music that I wanted.

My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

I think there are influences that you open the door to, and influences that come under the door.

The thing about influence is that any composer worth anything will give you the same names.

You either are or you're not.

There are rhythmic ideas which sometimes only work up to a point. In writing there are moments when it just comes off the page, it's not just a collection of notes.

In the end it doesn't matter what you do.

I want to feel good, I want to feel proud, I want to feel that I give someone enough and that I get enough.

You should never feel comfortable. There is something wrong if you are. You should always feel under threat, on the edge of your seat and pushing yourself. Win one and you want to win more. It's never-ending.

I want to have babies one day but not right now. When I do it I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.

When producers want to know what the public wants, they graph it as curves. When they want to tell the public what to get, they say it in curves.

I want the municipality to be a helping hand to the man with a desire of sympathy, to help the fallen when it is not in their power to help themselves.

Get me inside any boardroom and I'll get any decision I want.

The avantgarde are people who don't exactly know where they want to go, but are the first to get there.

If I had to come up with something that just came to me, I think growing up in a small town, I want knowledge. I still think today, knowledge is one of the keys.

I want to thank all the fans for their support over the years. Keep supporting the Knicks, we're moving in the right direction here and we will be exciting to watch and competing against the best in the NBA. Come back to the Garden for those exciting games.

If you want something that's going to provide you with a lot of challenges and a variety of different things to do, then you really can't beat a place like the Air Force. I don't mean this to sound like a recruiting pitch. But it's been a lot of fun.

I want to spend more time with those kids. I want to dedicate my time to train those kids and teach them what it takes, what they need to do to get to this level.

Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly that they agree to be exploited, and then end up embarrassing family, friends, and even strangers.

At one point in your life, you'll have the thing you want or the reasons why you don't.

It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can't have.

Once you drink one glass, you want another.

If you want to grow old as a pilot, you've got to know when to push it, and when to back off.

I don't want any more vicissitudes, I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I've had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.

Women don't like advice. They don't want you to fix their problems, they just want you to listen.