The problem with listening, of course, is that we don't. There's too much noise going on in our heads, so we never hear anything. The inner conversat….

It doesn't need to be imagined, it needs to be written down..

I think it's a great handicap to be discovered at an early age. I didn't have that burden of early success. I had the much more livable and durable c….

In order to arrive at a personal style, you have to have a technique to begin with..

Akhnaten is kind of a dark, kind of mysterious character. We don't know a lot about him - a lot of information on him was lost. But he obviously was ….

Satyagraha is an opera which I wrote for the Netherlands Opera, so it uses an orchestra of around fifty, a chorus of forty, and there are about seven….

I've been called a minimalist composer for more than 30 years, and while I've never really agreed with the description, I've gotten used to it..

The work I've done is the work I know, and the work I do is the work I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing..

It takes about a year to write an opera for me, but not a really a year of writing. I'm touring at the same time, and I'm playing, sometimes doing sm….

There's almost no content in terms of language at all. I don't like using language to convey meaning. I'd rather use images and music..

I find that people can’t find you. It’s kind of quiet. When I go to a city, I can almost always get a piano if I need one. So there’s something nice ….

I consider the first 20 performances just learning the piece. Think about it this way: If you think about a pianist who plays a Schubert sonata throu….

I don't know what I'm doing and it's the not knowing that makes it interesting..

My biggest problem about writing is whenever I write piano pieces, because I then have to learn to play them, which is sometimes not so easy..

I travel the world, and I'm happy to say that America is still the great melting pot - maybe a chunky stew rather than a melting pot at this point, b….

A new language requires a new technique. If what you're saying doesn't require a new language, then what you're saying probably isn't new..

I think I'm really part of a whole generational movement in a way. I think a lot of other people since and during this time have gotten interested in….

What I've noticed is that people who love what they do, regardless of what that might be, tend to live longer..

Finally, ultimately, you write music for yourself. I mean, I need a public, I need people to play, I need everything else. I'm not working in isolati….

Theatrical times are different from concert times, to put it simply. Taking a figure like [Mahatma] Gandhi and setting him on a stage requires thinki….

I shift between mediums very frequently. Instead of taking a break from writing, I just write in a different medium or in a different way or for a di….