As a screen composer or film-music writer, I need something that I can work with in the body of the score. Like 'Charade,' 'Moon River,' 'Wine and Roses,' 'Dear Heart' - they were all just themes that grew out of the picture.

I became a melodic writer after 'Gunn.'

Music is constantly developing and changing.

The most immediately gratifying thing about my work is conducting a large orchestra. But the long range payoff is composing because you've written something and it's there forever.

Sometimes people can see a movie of mine and not know until the credits roll that I wrote the score. That makes me feel good, that I can get out of that box every once in a while.

I've had pieces in my catalog that kind of amble along, that really never go anywhere, but are known and liked.

Some of the prettiest music I've done was in films that really were not a smash. Your music fares as the film does.

I've turned down many pictures, mostly because I didn't like them.

Oh, I'd been writing cartoonish music pretty much all along.

Some producers hang-on to that old cliche that if the audience hears the music, it is no good. I say this is so much talk. Music gives the film another dimension, if it's done with the story in mind.

When someone asks me to do a score, I look at the picture two or three times. I never watch the rushes to pick up the mood as quickly as I can. If it's something I want to do, just watching the film will start the wheels turning.

I don't like to surprise anyone with the music I compose for a film. That way, there is less trouble later on.

Some scenes cry out for a certain kind of treatment. The kind we're conditioned by years of film-watching to expect.

You can make or break a picture in the dubbing room.

If a film is not doing well, a record company will not take a chance with the score.

I would like a shot at Broadway.

The Pavarotti and Galway albums were a lot of fun because I got to work with two of the best 'voices' in the world.

My profession has never demanded that I be mobbed by fans.

I don't usually take a picture if I don't like it. I have that choice. But some pictures I like more than others.

Erroll Garner is one of the few musicians I believe has a sense of humor in his music.

Some people say 'flutist.' Others say 'flautist.' I just say 'flute player.' That's what I was.

My father was a steelworker who'd come over from Abruzzi, in Italy. He played in the band and he encouraged me to be a musician.

I very rarely write anything before what I see what I'm writing for.

Most people are oriented to words. When the public hears a melody, unless you put words to It, it takes longer to penetrate. It's always been like that, but I don't know why.

If you want to write for films or TV, you must go to Hollywood.

When I first began to work in pictures I tried to attract the attention of film critics, but I don't make movies to please them or myself anymore. I look for material that will entertain.

I equate composing with orchestrating. I think my music in terms of an orchestra.

I play a very streamlined piano.

I hate to do anything halfway so I leave the guitar alone.

I don't have a trunk of manuscripts.

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.

Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.

The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.

If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.

An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.

The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.

The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way.

We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.

If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.

The world dies over and over again, but the skeleton always gets up and walks.

The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference.

Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.

In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.

Life is 440 horsepower in a 2-cylinder engine.