An audience shouldn't listen with complacency.

The present government is very insistent that business sponsorship should replace government sponsorship of the arts. Business sponsorship won't happen unless you make tax concessions, which they won't.

At the moment, in Britain we're facing such enormous cutbacks in education programs and music programs and art programs that you feel you are knocking your head against a brick wall.

An audience shouldn't listen with complacency.

If you don't get feedback from your performers and your audience, you're going to be working in a vacuum.

I know what I want at least, and the older I get I think I'm better at getting it out of players and singers.

I recently did a piece for the Boston Pops and John Williams, and I hope that it's as well a composed piece as I've ever done for any other medium or occasion.

If you're writing a piece for the Boston Pops, the balance is towards one end. If you're writing a piece for a chamber music society, then it's towards another point. I won't make a final answer on that. I think it changes with every piece.

The establishment in Britain is certainly against the arts and against education. If something doesn't make a profit, it's invalid, and art doesn't make a profit in that sense.

The demands are related to their questing of the best possible out of the people concerned. It's this going for the highest possible factor that I'm very concerned about.

I'm obviously very keen on the theater and I think it's inevitable that some of the orchestral and chamber pieces have got dramatic elements which might even suggest an unspecified dramatic plot of some kind or other, even though it's not in my mind at the time.

I don't see how they can with most of my pieces, but I think it's unfortunate that they can through familiarity with flashy performances of a great deal of other music.

I'm not actually teaching any more, but I am writing pieces for schools all the time, and for kids.

But you can't really know your audiences so well.

I'm very interested, for instance, in music in education - getting young people not only to listen to, but participate in the music that I write. I consider this one of the most vital aspects of my work.

What they can expect always is that they're going to be made to think.

But when you get a bit older, and I hate to use the word, quite a bit more established, people take more notice and conducting becomes a great deal easier. You don't have battles like you had before.

If you aim at anything lower that is expecting your audience to be really alert and aware, then you're going to be caught out sooner or later as a composer.

Recently I've been participating in radio and television talk programs doing broadcasts and conferences, and shooting my mouth off and really going to town.

You don't underestimate either players or audience in any circumstances.

You can't pander to your audience. You might in the short term, but ultimately you can't hoodwink them, either.

If you dont get feedback from your performers and your audience youre going to be working in a vacuum.

It's a very dull thing to watch, a writer at work. So dull that whole casts of characters show up just to watch the boring writer writing.

The government shut down 12 times under Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill. It was only shut down twice while I was speaker.

I would think a sense of the absurd is more important for a political cartoonist, because that could define things like a sense of hypocrisy or a sense of the things one has to be skeptical about.

To me, body and mind are different aspects of specific biological processes.

It's really important to me that the public have confidence in their criminal justice system. We don't operate very well if the public doesn't trust us.

Defense usually doesn't make many headlines, but it goes a long way towards winning baseball games. There are a number of ways to make an impact during the course of a game, and playing solid, sound defense is one of them.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

As an entrepreneur you have to be OK with failure. If youre not failing youre likely not pushing yourself hard enough.

I'm not that patient sometimes. I'm like a rocket - I go a hundred miles per hour.

We wanted to create an environment where if a game player enjoyed the 'writing style' of a particular game designer, he or she could look for the next game by that same author and not be disappointed.

Don't try to follow any trends, just concentrate on writing great songs and knowing your instrument. All the other stuff will fall into place.

There are a lot of other things in this world that can and will bring me joy. Acting is one of them.

I love my parents. But I'm almost 28 and it's not fun to be asked, 'What are you doing today? What do you want for dinner? When are you going to be home?' It just makes you feel like a kid. It's this juxtaposition of feeling annoyed and really lucky to have people who love you so much.

It doesn't matter if you're winning or losing. You've got to be the same guy; you've got to prepare the same.

Games shouldnt only be fun. They should teach or spark an interest in other things.

My character is not flawless.

Actors are responsible to the people we play.

Choosing location is integral to the film: in essence, another character.

The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself.

Our Nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.

I did stand-up for a long time, and I did classical theater. As much time as you could spend on a stage will always inform you and your job, as you evolve. I feel the freedom of being able to find comedy in the darkest moments because it makes it way more interesting, I think.

In wintertime I like to wear flannel button down pyjamas, and in summer I prefer to wear, well... nothing.

Your limits are somewhere up there, waiting for you to reach beyond infinity.

Hosting is a thankless job.