The rules are: The more playful we get, the more we can get rid of the rules.

The thing that hasn't changed, and I don't think will ever change, is that the operative word in music is "play." You have to have a playfulness about it. As the world shifts, it's starting to understand more and more that to have a playfulness about any and everything is actually the way of having a better life, or being more creative, or being more productive.

You're going to fail a few times, because that is the only time you actually learn something.

America is a magical place, and I think my job, or the job of a lot of us European filmmakers is to just hold up America to Americans and present it to you in a new way. All I wanted to do is in a funny way say, "Look at your country. It's magnificent."

I loved this idea of always being a foreigner. There's this thing where people bring cultures, bring the music together. I love it when the music, when the cultures collide and something sort of new comes out of it.

You always hear these stories of how Hollywood is so merciless on composers and how they all get beaten up. Nobody beats me up as much as I beat myself up. This is what I love doing and I have one life to do it in, and I better do it right. I better do it well.

All music is based in one way or the other, or influenced through the ages, on technology.