 I do not think that music keeps evolving. It evolved through Bach; since then, in my humble opinion, all the innovations added nothing. |
| If you have more money than you need, you have to give it away. It's a duty. I get to choose whom to sponsor, and I like to give to the areas that I know something about. |
| I'm a terrible singer, but it helps when I have to call a taxi. |
| I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas. |
| My music is all about an idealistic human personality. I have 19th-century ideals. |
| Both parents were very encouraging - especially my father. My father thought the sun rose and set with me. Neither one had a musical background or any musical talent. They liked classical music, but neither could carry a tune. |
| There is no change - I'm as deep or as shallow as I ever was. What's new is on-the-job experience. This is what you gain with years. |
| The Getty family has been fully supportive throughout this situation, and for that, I am very grateful. |
| I personally do not write highbrow music. If I do, it's by accident. |
| My father was so much more than an accomplished businessman. |
| I don't think events in your life affect your music. |
| When my opera Plump Jack was performed in 1989, my first piano teacher sent me something that I'd composed when I was four. I remember I played it, and it still sounded like me. I'm the same composer I was then. |
| I want to make the world better. |
| Either your understanding of the meaning of music is there from the beginning or it is not. |
| I just have to take my chances like any other composer. |
| Nicolette, Kendalle, and Alexandra are my children. Their mother, Cynthia Beck, and I, love them very much. |
| I've had every advantage in the world, despite the 18 years of silence which were nobody's fault but mine. |
| It's true that I tend to daydream. I'm the same person in business as I am in music: I can be distracted and absentminded. It's my style. |
| I see only adaptations - not revolutions. |
| I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2,000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano. |
