You practice and you get better. It's very simple.

I don't know what I'm doing and it's the not knowing that makes it interesting.

A new language requires a new technique. If what you're saying doesn't require a new language, then what you're saying probably isn't new.

You get up early in the morning and you work all day. That’s the only secret.

The work I've done is the work I know, and the work I do is the work I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing.

What I've noticed is that people who love what they do, regardless of what that might be, tend to live longer.

What you hear depends on how you focus your ear. We're not talking about inventing a new language, but rather inventing new perceptions of existing languages.

I travel the world, and I'm happy to say that America is still the great melting pot - maybe a chunky stew rather than a melting pot at this point, but you know what I mean.

I've been called a minimalist composer for more than 30 years, and while I've never really agreed with the description, I've gotten used to it.

What came to me as a revelation was the use of rhythm in developing an overall structure in music.

If you don't have a basis on which to make the choice, then you don't have a style at all. You have a series of accidents.

Writers are the most pathetic souls when it comes to expressing their own feelings. Their personalities are as complex as the characters they weave.

An entire mythology is stored within our language.

However motherhood comes to you, it's a miracle.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

If I had all the money in the world, I'd still make movies. But I'd want them to pay me in donuts.

No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty.

Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.

It is a true saying, that what you fear you find.

Lead the audience by the nose to the thought.

However long it stays in the river the tree-trunk will never turn into a crocodile.