I'm not an intellectual composer.

Any good music must be an innovation.

I write emotional music.

Under my contract with Capitol, I have complete freedom to do just about anything I want in my own way.

Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers.

I aim my arrangements at what will fit and colorfully frame the song in the best way possible.

I did the Broadway album unfortunately in a year when there were no hits.

I love doing concert music.

When I want 30 musicians in the orchestra, I get 30.

That was when the Spanish came in and conquered the Aztecs. I thought that was a clever thing.

In a sense, a hit belongs to the person who made it popular, but if a tune is good enough to attain tremendous success, then it certainly deserves more than one version, one treatment, one approach.

Surely, I am being rewarded because I have you.

The reason why people do not have price tags is, because life is priceless.

Bravery is about overcoming fear, not about not having it. There's plenty I'm afraid of. Just not vampires.''We fear the unknown, ' she said. 'You must know a lot about vampires.

...the quickest, efficient, least expensive way to educate a man is to make it painful for him when he is wrong, the same as with any other animal.

A simple style is like white light. Although complex, it does not appear to be so.

I never went to business school. I was just bumbling through a lot of my life. I was like the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.

He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty.

I would agree with [criminal suspects being subjected to a DNA test after arrest]...if that's one step closer to finding out who has (committed a crime), then I think we should do it.

Greater powers and resources do not guarantee tactical superiority.

I've been told that my music tells a story, but I don't know the story.