Art is difficult. It's not always going to please everyone; it's not always going to work the way you want it to work.

I love Batman.

My parents loved music, but they weren't musicians. So my musical training as a young kid was limited to piano lessons. I was not the best student; I was awful, never practiced. But I was always interested in just messing around on the piano.

I was never one of those people that would just take jobs that were thrown at me.

I made tons of stop motion films with my friends in my neighborhood.

My dad had a great record collection, which included some music from Mexico, and so I always loved it.

I've been pretty lucky in that I'm not a big writer's block kind of person.

I've always, always, always listened to music since I was, like, 7 years old and made up stories in my head based on what I was hearing.

I watched 'Land of the Lost' as a kid, you know, incessantly. I loved it. Me and my brother watched it every Saturday.

I always liked melody.

Most television, the music is very much the same from show to show.

As a kid, I would listen to anything that had a live orchestra or ensemble playing, so that covered everything from show tunes to eclectic jazz things to film soundtracks to classical music. They're all inspiring to me.

Hopefully, by the time I do a project, I already have a true understanding and love of what I'm about to do because if I don't, I'm not going to work on that project. I really want to have those connections so I can be truthful to the emotional aspect of what I have to deliver for the story.

I was obsessed with 'The Twilight Zone' as a kid, and one of those things I didn't realize until I was in college was that I had been listening to Bernard Herrmann all my life.

Who can't relate to a story of a dreamer who, against all odds, is going to make something of himself that is completely unexpected?

Life is #1 on the agenda, and #2 is work.

Many film scores try to force an emotion into a story that inherently is not there in the first place.

I like to think that I probably have written more World War II music than anyone on the planet after all the 'Medal of Honors' and 'Call of Duties.'

'Lost,' at its core, is a science-fiction show. Live music helps lend an air of legitimacy to this otherwise crazy storyline. It makes a big difference.

I feel like I'll be writing World War 2 music the rest of my life.

When I was growing up, every show had live music. Now, almost none have live music. Probably 97 percent of the shows on television are probably synthesized, or mostly synthesized, and that's a shame.

In 'Ratatouille,' there are two different themes that express the two sides of Remy's personality: the creative side: the chef, and the 'thief' side: his nature as a mouse.

I try to keep a regular work schedule.

Without my experiences on the likes of 'Lost' and 'Alias,' I don't know if I would have survived 'Rogue One.'

I work on the types of movies that I would have loved watching as a kid.

My dad had these great Benny Goodman albums that I was obsessed with, and Louis Prima's another guy I loved, and Peter Niro the jazz pianist. I loved international music: Irish music, Mexican music. I love the different colours that they all have.

I always thought of 'Lost' as a psychotic opera. Because there were so many characters, it was important for me to track them with themes.

I've always looked at guys who I've admired, like John Williams and Lalo Schifrin and Max Steiner, and looked at the choices they made and always try to take a cue from that.

I always feel like my writing is consistently influenced by everything I watched and listened to growing up, so it's just this crazy collage of everything, you know.

Sometimes people do things because they are sad or because they are upset or were hurt by other people.

I loved writing 'Lost.' It was like a never-ending opera, in a way.

I think the Wachowskis are two of my favorite people on the planet; they're the best.

I don't like working all hours of the night and having an unreliable working pattern.

Of everything I've done in my career, or whatever you want to call it, 'Lost' is the purest version of me musically.

That's one of the neat things about 'Call of Duty.' There are areas in the game where we were able to score the gameplay.

My entire life was making movies.

I was fortunate enough in my public school that they had a full music program, and no one escaped it. It was treated as a subject that was as important as everything else, and I believe it is.

If you have a bad story on your hands, you have a bad story on your hands, and no amount of score re-working is gonna save that.

I think I learned everything about comedy and timing and drama from watching 'The Muppet Show,' which was one of the best shows ever produced.

I love percussive instrumentation.

If you listen to a score from beginning to end, you should envision the entire film in your head.

As an audience member, everyone I talk to is like, 'I'm so excited to see 'Super 8.' I'm so excited to see it.' And part of that is because of his drive to make sure that it stays hidden until the last minute.

When you're starting out in this business, it's very easy to want to say yes to everything that's offered to you.

When I was 9, I saw 'Star Wars,' and it set me on a path to where I am today.

Nothing can grab you by the throat - or heart or soul - like an orchestra. It's undeniably the most engaging and exciting way to bring a score to life.

I have an uncle who was heavily involved in World War 2, so over the years, I've talked to him many times.

'Lost' is such a thematic show that I'm always afraid that if I know something's going to happen at the end, I'll subconsciously write something in where someone who's astute will go, 'Oh, he used so-and-so's theme: that must mean so-and-so is coming back!'

I used to do puppet shows as a kid - me and my brother would do them - and then any poor soul who came into the house had to sit and watch our puppet shows.

Because of John Williams, I began collecting all kinds of film scores. I listened to them when I fell asleep, and it was through my obsessive listening that I learned what all the different parts of the orchestra were. I learnt a great deal from him by just simply listening.

For me, the music is always speaking from the point of view of the characters. Rarely do you score an event.