The idealists will always be in society, and we will survive.

...I always thought youth were idealists - now, I'm not so sure - I'm more idealistic now then at 17...

I don't ascribe to the idea of the ivory tower composer who sits alone in a room composing his masterpieces and then comes down from Mount Sinai with the tablets. It doesn't work like that. The job of a composer is putting something down on a piece of paper that will inspire the person who's playing.

Disarming an idealist was easy. One only needed to ask why the idealist was not on the front line of the particular battle he had chosen.

Disarming an idealist was easy

My solo music - I get up onstage, I improvise and it's my improvisation. When I get up onstage with Fred Frith and Mike Patton, then we're improvising together. Then it's not my music; it's our music.