Some of the songs I've made, I'm really disappointed in how I mixed them.
After every movie, I always kick myself for the same things-didn't do enough, not enough variation, not enough interesting choices, too bland.
In a weak moment, I have written a book.
I think any filmmaker looks back and thinks, 'Boy, if we only had four hours more on that day when the sun was going down,' or, 'If we only spent more time and went back.'
It happened to me on 'King of the Hill,' where I'd left it before the end and didn't really participate in the ending, and I always felt a little bit like I wanted to try a different version of that story.
The album 'Physicist,' I erased all the work that I had done halfway through. I think that's probably why that contributed to that album being sort of sub-par for me, just because by the time I had to go back and do it, I was just over it.
I've always regretted the fact that I've never formally studied and learned the mechanics of writing music.
There is no 'Bat Out of Hell III.' That should have never happened. To me, that record is nonexistent. It doesn't exist.
When you do a movie, you shoot, and then you go away. A lot of the times you walk about from the movie, you say, 'Oh, I get that scene now... Oh, that whole ending - I wish I could have done another shot.'
I have ideas that I will probably never write now.
When he looks back, the critic sees a eunuch's shadow. Who would be a critic if he could be a writer? Who would hammer out the subtlest insight into Dostoevsky if he could weld an inch of the Karamazovs, or argue the poise of Lawrence if he could shape the free gust of life in The Rainbow?
But, yes, now I wouldn't do some of those soundtracks the way I did them.
The problem is I don't have respect for the films I make after I've made them. I detach myself and get embarrassed when I watch them later.
Sometimes, I probably do mourn the fact that I no longer make films.
My mother is a great artist, but she always treated her paintings like minor postcards. Had she pursued it, she would have been a great artist. Instead, she looked down on her art.
Corny answer is of course is that everyone who wants musicals are children in different ways, aren't they? So you think of them in different ways. There are things of mine I'm sorry haven't come here.
If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer...When I was younger, I felt it was my duty to wake people up. I thought poetry was asleep. I thought rock 'n' roll was asleep...An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.
I would have liked to be - indeed, I should have been - a second Rembrandt.
Of course, we wrote the songs accordingly and performed and recorded them that way. At that time, we really thought it was right, but you know, seen in retrospect, it made the album sound forced, and not really great.
I must confess that the original 'Pretty Woman' was terrific and a hit, but I always felt that creatively I didn't do justice to Richard Gere's character. So in the musical, we have some great new moments for Richard's character.
I often wonder whether I would have done as well in painting.
Normally, you go into the recording studio, make a record and then take it on the road and you think... wow... I could have done THIS to it, or something.
I really wanted to write the death of Captain Kirk.
We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create, and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesen't remind us what we did badly, it reminds us what we know we could do better.
I was vested emotionally in 'Battlestar.' I really loved the thematic things. I don't feel it really got its shot, and I can't blame anyone else; I was at the center of that.
