I try to listen to stuff that makes me happy for other reasons, rather than being musically inspiring.

I had thought everyone in the electronic world would be so laid back, but there's as many cliques and prejudices as any other world.

There's something strange about a laptop, how you can make the tiniest gesture and make the biggest sound. I don't feel I've resolved working a sense of performance into a piece yet.

I want to become less and less about the laptop. That's what's lovely about an orchestra - the physicality, the way every gesture relates to something you're hearing.

I feel happier knowing a starting point came from me. And I like stuff that gives you a physical reaction.

I've never been really interested in music, classical or otherwise, where the craft is more important than the result. I realized quickly that I'd never be a technical electronic musician.

Quite often, when I describe to people what I want, I'll say "overwhelming" - I want it to feel like it's phy

Performances are so defined by their venues - it'd be nice for the music to dictate more of the reaction.

With the classical stuff, I've always been better at the big brushstrokes and broad textures than spending ages honing a chord, or tweaking a sample.

Other friends have said, "I don't understand why you've used this trumpet-style sound rather than a real one when you know you can write for trumpet." But it's most important to get the energy right.

We are the Dragon-Hearted.

The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue

The weight of her expectations crumble me. I've always done the right thing. She expects me to make good choices but I don't even know what good choices look like...

Making my English better is a hard job, a slow job. But it's getting better. Three years ago it would have taken me a half hour to say this sentence.

I didn't think it was possible at my age, honestly. They call it a geriatric pregnancy.

I think country music is obviously a great form of music. I think it's cool and has mass appeal.

My crazy parents and those crazy Catholic nuns didn't do a good job of forcing me to keep the Ten Commandments, but they kept me forever fixated on the very idea of a taboo.

My mother always told me that any talent is a gift of God and I always believed it. If I quit, I would just live in front of the television and get fat and die pretty soon.

You don’t have the slightest idea of what it means to write a scene and a character in the English language, with images and words chock full of received meaning.

Meanness demeans the demeaner far more than the demeaned.