David Lang

Once you start with this idea that I'm connected to people, then the next question is, well, how far does that connection work?

If I love my neighbor, well, who's my neighbor?

How big is my neighborhood?

I'm not sure that I got changed by anything that I read because I read it with a particular eye from the beginning.

I'm not that interested in money, to be honest.

I mean, are you interested in having some?

Well, that's an interesting question.

I'm interested in having enough.

And then that question of how much is enough is different for everybody else.

Everyone may have a different level of risk that they want to have in their lives, or everyone may want to have a different amount that they feel is necessary in order to show off or to feel that they're better than someone else or whatever.

I don't really know what the right amount is.

You are reminding me of the part of David Copperfield where Mr. McCarver says, if you have 20 pounds of annual expense and at the end of the year you have 20 pounds and one pence, you are a rich person.

And if you have 19 pounds and 19 shillings or whatever the calculation is, one penny less, you're impoverished.

And I sort of have tried to live by that definition.

And I think when you're freelancing in the arts, as most people in the arts are, you have to get an attitude which is comfortable with having less.

Unfortunately, we don't really take care of the people who are in the arts in this country very well.

And I, after all, was in college to go to medical school.

You studied chemistry at Stanford?

Yeah, I was a chemistry undergraduate for the first two years.

In fact, the whole music department at Stanford was all pre-med.