Most everything I've ever written has .been done to 'assignment.'

Well, I thought the opening of 'Hatari!' was pretty good. And 'The Pink Panther' wasn't half bad either.

Quite a few of The Rolling Stones records have had a great honesty about them. In fact, I would put them side-by-side with a 'Treasury of Folk Music' collection, containing all the prison songs, the farm and road-gang songs that were recorded on the spot in the Deep South.

My kids will come to me and ask me to listen to a 'new sound' they think they've discovered. One time it was the Beatles' 'Yesterday,' and the new sound was four strings. All of a sudden the new generation discovers the string quartet!

Stravinsky influenced film music in general - those stabbing chords and rhythms from 'The Rite of Spring.'

You've got to be an editor in order to be a good composer.

My father started me out on the flute and I began going to teachers.

I wanted to be up there with all those names like Max Steiner.

I was never In a restaurant until after I left home. My mother came from Abruzzi and they're noted for their great cooking.

Basically, I'm a melodic writer.

It takes different mindsets to do different things.

Sometimes memorable music doesn't necessarily have to be a hit.

People love to hear a guy who is really good on his instrument. They love to watch him go.

You're molded by the period you were brought up in.

I just write when the bell rings. I don't have time to wait for inspiration.

It's very difficult to be funny musically. I think I achieved It with 'The Pink Panther.'

I used to raise the devil when my father made me practice the flute and my mother made me take piano lessons.

I have an Otari with a Korg T2 Midi synthesizer, a drum machine and a few effects units.

Cancer... changed my whole work attitude.

The man who writes for hire has an obligation, if only to himself, to keep an open mind and to absorb new ideas.

I've always been a dreamer.

I used to be selected for the Pennsylvania all-state orchestra. It was a thrill to go from my home town of Aliquippa clear across the state to Lancaster for the concerts. No kid is immune to that kind of experience.

Hopefully the music of the future will not be all electronic. There is a place for it if it is used sparingly.

Blake Edwards has set up an extraordinary combination of moods in 'Peter Gunn.' When you stop to analyze it, you can't find the boundaries where the music stops and the show takes over.

I find I work best as a reactor, trying to portray something on a screen musically. If I were a boxer, I'd be a counter-puncher.

Getting out and being able to present a concert is invigorating.

I don't want to get corny, but my career really has been the personification of the American dream.

The basic problem with young people entering show business is that they are in a hurry.

You know, I started in movies a long time ago, and once in awhile I'm taken aback. Sometimes one of my things will come on - they use my things as background music all the time, in somebody else's arrangements and It catches my ear.

I'm usually the last man on the totem pole. Except for the sound effects and the final sound mix, the score is the last element to be added to a picture.

I don't think I've ever spent more than an hour on any one song, but that doesn't count the thinking that goes on beforehand.

Broadway is intimidating. Don't think it's not.

I was always trying to be a quote, unquote, film composer.

I try to change my concert program every couple of years - hopefully to keep my listeners interested.

A good theme - like the 'Pink Panther' or 'Baby Elephant Walk' - can work all the way through the picture, which is what I did with them. So, for me, a good melody is not just a pretty tune.

I just love what I do.

Bassoon is not an easy instrument to play and to pick it up and play it like a flute or a saxophone is quite an accomplishment.

If I'm writing songs for a country-Western picture, I have to know about country music.

I don't know if I've ever written a song that wasn't on assignment.

I've never gone to a singer with a song and said 'why don't you try this?' or tried to get a record like that. My head just wasn't there.

I play citified Count Basie piano. As few notes as possible, my left hand in my pocket, that kind of stuff.

Getting married in 1947 and settling down in Hollywood was the real beginning of my career.

In the mid-1930s, a lot of the Big Bands sounded the same.

Amplification of guitars revolutionized the popular music scene. Youngsters look for quick fame and big money with amplified guitars and working with rock groups.

Too many schools across the country have cut back heavily on their music curricula.

I wanted to write picture music ever since I was a kid.

Technique is superficial. The method used in applying technique is what gives music its character.

I don't pretend to want to write the Great American Symphony.

In 'Charade,' there was a big fight. George Kennedy was playing one of his first big heavy roles; he had a hook for a hand, and he was real ugly. Cary Grant was Cary Grant. They were on a slanted roof, a very exciting fight, and we agreed there shouldn't be any music, just the grunts and the action.

I'm no songwriter because all of my popular songs have just been outgrowths of themes for the various pictures.