Old age is a time of humiliations, the most disagreeable of which, for me, is that I cannot work long at sustained high pressure with no leaks in concentration.

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?

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.

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.

Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.

When you're following your inner voice, doors tend to eventually open for you, even if they mostly slam at first.

People Ignore, People Hurt, People Confuse. But, Nature Talks, Nature Heals, Nature Answers.

Determined is a quiet inner resolve, focused on your purpose.

Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.

A lot of people go off and have fun adventures, or hard adventures, and their impulse is to write about them right away. What really makes a difference is having some perspective on what happened.

I have always felt comfortable tapping into my inner idiot.

A lovely countenance is the fairest of all sights, and the sweetest harmony is the sound of the voice of her whom we love.

I think Michael Caine is a perfectly good actor but it's obvious he's not going to be in one of my films.

Of all the hokum with which this country [America] is riddled, the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions.