I’ve never intended to be controversial, but it’s very easy to be controversial in pop music because nobody ever is.

Music is my living. I enjoy selling my music.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

If you think my music is sentimental and self-absorbed, I agree with you.

One time I introduced my orchestra as the Shampoo Music Makers instead of the Champagne Music Makers.

The William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh… was the place where Champagne Music was born.

I believe 100 percent in the power and importance of music.

I grew up with classical music when I was a ballet dancer. Now when I have to prepare an emotional scene, to cry or whatever, I listen to sonatas. Vivaldi and stuff. It’s just beautiful to me.

I didn’t really see the British punk movement, if that’s what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really.

I find that classical music helps put me in a place that is very calming and allows me to express emotion through my body. I played clarinet as a child, so I guess I have a bit of a musical ear.