I don't believe in an annual dose of film music for the sake of it being film music. If we program film music, it will be because there is a real artistic reason for doing so.

Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course.

There will have to be times when I'm not conducting because I'm composing. I haven't solved that problem, and perhaps I never will.

Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.

As we watch TV or films, there are no organic transitions, only edits. The idea of A becoming B, rather than A jumping to B, has become foreign.

The act of conducting in itself, of waving my arms in the air and being in charge, I didn't miss. I missed the sensual pleasure of being in contact with music.

My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience.

I discovered that the people of the North are different and there's no way you can make a person from the North similar to a Southerner. They're two different worlds.

I feel very free and very happy to be a composer.

It is the time that delivers greatness to people. Therefore if you can know how to convert your time by investing it, then you can buy greatness with it.

...opening up a newspaper is the key to looking classy and smart. Never mind the bronze-plated stuff about the role of the press in a democracy - a newspaper, kiddo, is about Style.

Paris was a museum displaying exactly itself.

She waited for you in a thousand different ways.

All manifestation of fear is a reflection of the fact that humanity has forgotten its spiritual identity. In beginning to remember it, we put fear on notice that its days are numbered.

Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.

Trust is almost always conditional, focused, qualified, and therefore limited.

I can't remember a single year of my life when I haven't made a piece of theatre.

Think big and don't listen to people who tell you it can't be done. Life's too short to think small.

I adore you, mon petit, and would never allow him to hurt you, no matter how gently or madly.