There Are So Many Beautiful Things In

I Don't Write For Children. I Write, And Somebody Says, 'that's For Children.'

The Fan Mail I Get From Kids Are Asking Me Questions Which They Do Not Ask Their Mothers And Fathers. Because If They Had, Why Write To Me, A Perfect Stranger?

A Whole New World Of Italian Music Was Springing Up, And [giuseppe] Verdi Was Seen As Old. Boito Got Verdi All Excited About The Possibility Of Doing Another Opera, Another Kind Of Opera. In Fact, Verdi Composed His Two Best Operas, Otello And Falstaff, In His Eighties.

In Another Project I Worked On Just A Few Years Ago, A Staging Of Peter And The Wolf, Which I Translated Into Yiddish And Sang On A Stage In New York City. Thank God Very Few People Knew I Was Doing It! But The Kids In The Audience Loved It - Even Though It Was All In Yiddish.

You Know Who My Gods Are, Who I Believe In Fervently? Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson - She's Probably The Top - Mozart, Shakespeare, Keats. These Are Wonderful Gods Who Have Gotten Me Through The Narrow Straits Of Life.