Childhood - a period of waiting for the moment when I could send everyone and everything connected with it to hell.

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.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

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.

Happiness is being at home your own skin and being able to occupy your life.

I write to shed my tears.

Gaining insight into one's underlying motives, it seems, is more like a belief conversion than a self-discovery process

I'm not funny in person. I mean I'm really not. I'm one of those people who always screw up anecdotes.

Africa? A book one thumbs Listlessly, till slumber comes.

The hype man's job is to get everybody out of their seats and on the dance floor to have a good time.

A reputable lawyer will advise you to keep out of the law, make the best of a foolish bargain, and not get caught again.

My dad was a jingle writer, and my mom was a jewelry designer and musician.

Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigor of the traveller.