- Founded the Kronos Quartet in 1973 with Jim Shallenberger, Tim Kilian and Walter Gray.
- As a culture we need all the energy we can get from wherever we can find it: experiences that give us confidence and renewed optimism. One of our responsibilities as musicians is to make experiences that give people renewed energy and enthusiasm for solving problems. I have access to music twenty-four hours a day, and most people don't get to do that.
- [on forming the Kronos Quartet] I was hoping that we could survive for a week. We were trying to survive in American society doing music that nobody ever heard of before, and assembling a repertoire that sounded right but also included social issues, which had never been part of the string quartet.
- I had to start a group because I had to play [George Crumb's 'Black Angels']. It caused my world to make sense for a split second. There was the world of Schubert on one side and the world of Jimi Hendrix on the other side. Seattle at that point was the focus of tremendous anti-Vietnam protests. Somehow 'Black Angels' brought all of that together for me.
- I decided to be a musician at age twelve, and the world was just going to have to get used to it.
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