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

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.

As a young man, I feel as if it's all about progressing. I may have had to mature a little faster than others, but no worries. I took it on full steam and led by example off the field.

The truest experience of life is when we dream awake.

I want to say to all of you that when I take my oath of office I will do my absolute best to use all of my abilities for all of the people of Ireland.

Music is like a conversation. One person says one thing that speaks with a harmonica with a bass with a drum. Theyre all conversating and were just trying to find a way to make conversation rather than blah blah blah. But its not really so hard a thing to do if you know the way to approach it.

I'm against organised religion of any kind.

As a kid, I liked making up stories, and I wrote a story about a kangaroo and a bat with Christy Chang, and she went on to become a surgeon.

I wish the word whimsical wasn't used now.

A new broom sweeps clean

The study of tavern history often brings to light much evidence of sad domestic changes. Many a cherished and beautiful home, rich in annals of family prosperity and private hospitality, ended its days as a tavern.

When I finished touring 'Fur and Gold,' I was just like, 'What am I doing? What do I have? Where is my home?' I didn't really know where it was, so I went to New York to try and make it there.

I don’t care whether you’re a top Wall Street banker, if somebody has to tell you when to be at work, what to wear, and how to behave, you’re not a free person.

Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

Be fond of the man who jests at his scars, if you like; but never believe he is being on the level with you.

I've got little ankles and a bit of a belly, so it makes me look rather an egg on legs.

We're constantly told that all cultures are equal, and that every belief system is as good as the next. And it led to a kind of - and generally, that America was to be known for its flaws rather than its virtues.

A formally recognized equality does, however, accord the smaller nations a position which they should be able to use increasingly in the interest of humanity as a whole and in the service of the ideal.

I never pushed to be a star. I didn't want to. I had my home, my family. Session work let you do the music and leave.

Mike Dukakis, you know, he can't get a job mowing lawns.

Laws were changed and regulations repealed until an Enron can set sail without responsibility, supervision, or accountability.

To be memorable and to have dramatic impact, informational detail must function actively within the dynamic of a story.

I love Michelle Williams. I think she's extraordinary. I was such a fan of 'Blue Valentine,' and I heard stories about how Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams worked on that. They lived together for a period of time as rehearsal. From nine in the morning to five at night, living in a space together. The work is really awe-inspiring.

A sane person doesn't think war is a good idea. I'm not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don't go looking for those things.

The utter incompetence of the U.N. is literally incomprehensible.

I read the paper every day and the Bible every day; that way I know what both sides are up to.