“Of the three goals to which all aspire – success in love, in society, and in profession – only two are plausible simultaneously: you can’t have a smooth love life, a rich social life, and still get your work done. …
“Among the rare positive attributes of aging is the involuntary urge to find patterns: if I had not exactly forgotten that I too was reared a Quaker, I had suppressed it; suddenly this Quaker island [Nantucket] spoke – as we Quakers say – to my condition, and this condition was not godly but juvenile, free of lust and longing, like a child alone in the giant potential of his nursery. Anyone can waste himself but only I can pen my tunes, and the time had come.” – Ned Rorem, from “Out of Nantucket,” in Other Entertainment (1984)
