"I feel like my place in a business like this is to show you that what you look like as a person will never matter more than what it is you can create as an artist."
"If this helps to open your eyes to what is more just, what is more equal, then that is one of the things to take away from this experience today."
"Musically, it's always in a way, like a second thought to me. It's funny, right? I'm always interested in human nature and and humanities and the complexity of the humans in question."
"I always assumed that opera was a world in a space that I shouldn't go into, which I shouldn't even bother."
"Our story is about this particular journey. It's a different journey, but the same journey that I think other people have had as well. "
"I think one of the hardest things to do is to strive for perfection and then have the humility to recognize that you did your best."
"We are there to communicate with emotions. We are there to transport. We are there to support history, the imagination of somebody. And if it all gets just corrected by politics, it loses its purpose."
"Not only is this work a masterpiece, but it's also adapted into a film that is also separately a masterpiece. I don't think it's necessary to do a straight telling of the story. "
"There is not an inherent gorgeousness to classical music itself. We find it gorgeous because we find ourselves represented in it. We have not been successful at making it relevant for everybody."
"The tragedy in this movie is that at the heart of it is this unrequited love story, which is a very, almost adolescent kind of pain. But that pain is magnified by the pain of the catastrophe in the background."