“If you put together all the ingredients that naturally attract children - sex, violence, revenge, spectacle and vigorous noise - what you have is grand opera.”

“Sex is two plus two making five, rather than four. Sex is the X ingredient that you can't define, and it's that X ingredient between two people that make both a man and a woman good in bed. It's all relative. There are no rules.”

“You can learn more by going to the opera than you ever can by reading Emerson. Like that there are two sexes.”

“Put the nightmare together. If you do not wake up screaming, you have not put it together well.”

“(when children can watch without embarrassment their mothers breast feed brothers and sister) They realize the wholesomeness of sex and its naturalness. They don't put sex in the wrong proportion.”

“The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.”

“What you discovered about yourself in raising children wasn't always agreeable or attractive.”

“Cricket is first and foremost a dramatic spectacle. It belongs with theatre, ballet, opera and the dance.”

“Which do you prefer, she says. Sex or Violence?
I try to smile. What's the difference, really.”

“You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed…”