A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos.

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa Lobos?

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.

Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune.

We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.

You can never go further than your own thoughts.

Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

She shook her head and whispered, "No. No! That can't be true. Impossible!""You think things have to be possible? Things have to be true!

As it has turned out, the whole relationship between men, women and children has tilted, to the disadvantage of women.

I gradually work myself into a frenzy as the shoot approaches, while we're choosing the costumes or working with the make-up artist. I'm not so much interested in my character as the film itself.

Ciara’s new single is a complete rip-off of Usher’s ‘U Got It Bad.’

I'm Jewish. Went to a Jewish school.

I was terrified, terrified in Songwriter, because there I was, New York Jewish girl, singing country-western onstage with Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson. I mean, forget it. I was so terrified.

Truth is a constant delight to those that love her; such beauty holds no power to offend.