Being an old radical, I like films like Spartacus. I could relate to the hero.

Composers today get a TV script on Friday and have to record on Tuesday. It's just dreadful to impose on gifted talent and expect decent music under these conditions.

Fear is a problem with film music and films; people want to be conventional, and there's more commercialism today. If you are not daring in your art, you're bankrupt.

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

I prefer to write music for family films. I like people.

When I decided to go to a country that subsidized music, I went to the Soviet Union for two years.

Hope drowned in shadowsemerges fiercely splendid––boldly angelic.

Fear, like love, is difficult to explain after it has subsided, probably because it draws away the veils of illusion as it disappears.

I am Butler. Anything I say sounds scary.

You are not the car you drive.

There are people who think death a fate worse than boredom.

I think everyone wants for their kids the good things that they had.

Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found.

When you don't behave the way liberals think you should, their effort and their intention to control you compounds.

I look down at our linked fingers as I loosen my grasp, but he regains his grip on me. “No, don’t let go of me,” he says.