My urge, when I go to the store, is to buy everything. And it's the same when I'm composing. My first instinct is basically to bring the whole store home, and not make a decision about how things play out.

I'm trying to phase out my availability on the phone. People call you when you're walking down the street and say the most random stuff.

For me the best kind of film music is liturgical music. Liturgical music is essentially a million scores for the same film.

Even more than in the concert hall, in church there are things you can and cannot do, just out of respect. You would never have the sound of someone being nailed to a cross, or the sound of a child being born, because everybody knows the story. We know that we're meant to feel a complicated raft of things.

I didn't entertain the idea that my music would ever become available in any of the ways that I had previously known music to be available.

Whenever I get asked to write orchestra music or music that is for a lot of players, I try to make it a little sad.

The score is doing a lot of work. It's like Wagner. It's like a yak carrying people.