Composer Quotes

Many, many years ago, I was one of the few conductors who talked to the audience and now a lot of classical conductors have figured it out... otherwise, you just get the back of someone's head playing music you could hear on a CD. It's not enough anymore.

Let's say music is needed for only 43 seconds of film. You have to score it so it is an entity, so it won't bother anyone when it ends so quickly. Or if a song runs 2 minutes and 45 seconds, but the titles run a minute longer, you have to arrange that song so it doesn't get repetitious.

If I'm within reach and can be helpful, I have a tendency to say 'Yes.' It's hard to say 'No.'

I'm not one of those people who says, 'I never read reviews,' because I don't believe those people.

I think that when NASA works on a moon shot, they know too well that all of the people working on it must do their job at 110 percent. Sometimes they probably put in 18 hour days, but they're aiming for the moon, and that's what counts.

I still have great faith in what is good and right in all of us.

I started studying music at the age of five and a half. My older sister was taking piano lessons. When her teacher left our apartment, I would get up on the piano bench and start picking out the notes that were part of my sister's lessons.

I never took any vocal training.

I have always thought of music as a highway with many lanes.

I can make a song up about anything: garbage, the weather, things in the news.

From the time I could play the piano, I remember trying to write tunes. They were in my head, and I would just sit down and start noodling. Next thing I knew, I had written a melody.

Barbra Streisand is without a doubt one of the most honest people I have ever known. There is no doubt in my mind that she will not be doing any more concerts. Of course, she still will be making records and starring and directing in movies.

As I get older, I'm slowing down and, yes, calming down in my desire to be taken seriously. That I can be entertaining and funny and high nervous energy can work against me as a serious composer, slowly but surely you'll see me be quieter just so that people will listen.

There have been studies that clearly state that children who are exposed to arts education at a young age will in fact do markedly better in their SAT tests.

I was always drawn to Broadway musicals, and obviously composers like Gershwin, Rodgers, Berlin and Porter were writing music that I found wildly impressive.

A nation creates music - the composer only arranges it.

Traditions are imploding and exploding everywhere - everything is coming together, for better or worse, and we can no longer pretend we're all living in different worlds because we're on different continents.

I travel the world, and I'm happy to say that America is still the great melting pot - maybe a chunky stew rather than a melting pot at this point, but you know what I mean.

What came to me as a revelation was the use of rhythm in developing an overall structure in music.

Love forbids you not to love.

When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.

We will hang you, never fear, Most politely, most politely.

The House of Peers, throughout the war, did nothing in particular, and did it very well.

Philosophy is for the few.

No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a dirty little beast.

Man is nature's sole mistake.

If you wish in this world to advance your merits you're bound to enhance; You must stir it and stump it, and blow your own trumpet, Or, trust me, you haven't a chance.

He combines the manners of a Marquis with the morals of a Methodist.

And I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

My family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering.