When you're artistic director of a program, you present the music you want to present.
When people conclude that all is futile, then the absurd becomes the norm.
People don't really think other people are the same.
What we need in America is a renaissance. We need to go forward by going backward.
Under popular culture's obsession with a naive inclusion, everything is O.K.
The high point of civilization is that you can hate me and I can hate you but we develop an etiquette that allows us to deal with each other because if we acted solely upon our impulse we'd probably go to war.
The grand irony, however, is that Southern segregation was not brought to an end, nor redneck violence dramatically reduced, by violence.
The discussion of ideas as opposed to the American narcissistic obsession with what's going on with the self, that's the general thing people are talking about.
Rap actually comes out of punk rock, not black music.
Now the writing in the head, I definitely do every day, thinking about how I want to phrase something or how I'd like to rephrase something I've already written.
Popular culture tells you that schools and parents don't know what's going on, the police are dogs, politicians are all liars and scum, and any crime that's not committed by the Mafia is done by the CIA.
Your ethnic or sexual identity, what region of the country you're from, what your class is - those aspects of your identity are not the same as your aesthetic identity.
When a violent minority that crosses color lines comes to believe that killing those you know or do not know is a reasonable solution to problems, we are in need of another vision.