Your character should always be stronger than your circumstances.
I was trying to do something that seemed very natural and easy but which bridged that gulf between the singing voice and the speaking voice.
It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.
I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.
Our most intimate contact with civilizations long since dust has been through the art which has survived them.
If an American audience is given a serious musical theater piece that is well produced, dramatically gripping and wonderfully acted, they'll respond to it.
What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds.
England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune.
Keep laughing. As long as you’re laughing you still have hope.
God said, 'When one man and one woman shine together, it makes the most perfect light.
I have no idea! I have been writing for 35 years and from the beginning up to now the situation's almost the same. I'm kind of an ugly duckling. Always the duckling, never the swan.