Audience Quote by Carlisle Floyd

We think the Puritans always dressed in black and white, which they didn't. They loved very bright colors. And there were other differences in…

— Carlisle Floyd

Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic…

— Carlisle Floyd

It's necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you're dealing with more than one or two characters, it's very easy…

— Carlisle Floyd

I was encouraged by my mother and, to a lesser extent, by my father.

— Carlisle Floyd

The artist is something of an outsider in America. I have always felt that America does not value its artists, certainly not in the…

— Carlisle Floyd

I think anything that is expressed directly and as honestly as possible will last.

— Carlisle Floyd

If I felt that one of my operas did not come off I would certainly say so.

— Carlisle Floyd

You can't possibly predict what will last or not. But once you attempt to write for the ages, you're doomed.

— Carlisle Floyd

Socially I never was an outsider. I have never thought of the conflict element before frankly, but perhaps it was wanting to belong, and…

— Carlisle Floyd

I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great…

— Carlisle Floyd

I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.

— Carlisle Floyd

When I've seen my operas in Europe, they have always struck me as more American than when I hear them here. I can't tell…

— Carlisle Floyd