I did a song in eight minutes. I thought everybody could write songs that fast. But working with a lot of them, they don't.
I occasionally experience the discomfort of people assuming my work is autobiographical.
When you hear composer, you think, like, Beethoven: guy in a powdered wig, at a piano, furiously scribbling on manuscript paper. That's not the only image that a composer should bring up, you know. But that's kind of what we've said it is.
I’m just confusing the thrill of being young with the notion that the era in which I was young was in any way especially creative or remarkable.
I deny that either singers or conductors can "create" or work creatively - this, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss.
As a musician, basically the masses never thought I was a musician.
Some people, especially literary people, they think, 'I'll write this original script, and it will be full of ideas. I'll submit it, and they'll hire me for television.' That's not the case.
There's a certain fear of simplicity. I think that's the thing, when you're younger as an artist, you get this idea in your head that complexity equals quality. The more notes you're playing, the better.
There's the underlying feeling that writing must be easy, because it's all about putting letters together. That's only true in the same way that programming is all about putting numbers together.
Animation is very singular. Like, even the 'Toy Story' movies. People will go, 'Oh, gosh, you're so lucky, getting to play opposite Tom Hanks!' And it's, like, 'It may have appeared to be that, but we were never in the room together.'
You always have to remember in this business that the public doesn't care about us. It's very important to keep that in mind. If there is a public perception at all, they see the producer as a big old guy who smokes a cigar and has lots of money and lots of power. That's not what a producer is and, if it ever was what a producer was, it certainly hasn't been for a long time.
Who knew that being an artist was a glamour job?
Until recently, I thought 'occasional poetry' meant that you wrote only occasionally.
So many people romanticize writing. And I get it. But I never once wanted to be a writer.
