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.

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?

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.

Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune.

After all, what is every man? A horde of ghosts – like a Chinese nest of boxes – oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death lies behind us, not in front – in our ancestors, back and back until...

The Lord God give rain to the earth.

Develop the muscles for hard work and never be an early quitter.

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.

A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest.

If I were to write the story of my life, I would shock the world.

Traveling to swimming meets took me beyond my small-town existence, gave me a hint of the exciting world outside of my own home.

As long as you are held within a pattern you must create disorder in the world.

Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.

Criminals are opportunists. If you've got a booming market, they're going to get away with more fraud.