I do think one of my strengths is the ability to adapt to whatever the situation is.

There are probably limits on what the choir can sing well.

From the beginning, music has been the chosen way to express feelings that words alone can't.

It's a great privilege and a highlight for choir and orchestra members to perform for audiences in live concerts.

Every time that we've ever fought, we fought to keep from bein' destroyed. We've never started a war.

I'd gone to Oxford to do graduate studies in the history of the slave trade, but I came across Georgiana's letters, gave up that thesis, and wrote one on her instead. When I learned that Georgiana's great-nephews supported opposite sides in the American Civil War, I knew this would be the perfect sequel.

The Olympics is an imperfect interregnum, the parade of nations a fantasy about a peace never won. It offers little relief from strife and no harbor from terror.

I don't think I've ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.