Explore Quotes by Carlisle Floyd

Socially I never was an outsider. I have never thought of the conflict element before frankly, but perhaps it was wanting to belong, and at the same time wanting to retain one's own personality.

The performances of my works in the last 10 years are probably equal to all the previous years put together. There are so many venues now and there is a completely new public for opera that's grown up outside of the traditional core opera public.

It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.

It's amazing how fast generations lose sight of other generations. One of the first things the young composers who come to work with me say is that they want to write music people will like, instead of gaining their credentials by being rejected by the audience.

Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.

Most of the important composers in our country are clustered in the Northeast.

It's necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you're dealing with more than one or two characters, it's very easy to forget that the others have lives of their own that feed into the story.

I think anything that is expressed directly and as honestly as possible will last.

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.

I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.

America tends to worship the modest talent because it doesn't put us in an uncomfortable position vis-a-vis the artist.