As a composer you want to tell musicians two completely contradictory things. You want to say, "Play exactly what I wrote, but bring your own thing to it." In a lot of ways they feel like opposites, but in a sense, my job is to cajole or encourage decisions that I approve of.

I think my generation is a lost generation in a way.

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.

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

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.

In really fancy restaurants they never point to the bathroom, they just gesture toward the bathroom or they'll lead you to the bathroom. The fancier the restaurant, the less pointing there is.

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