Because I had been in conservatory for so long, I was jealous of my friends in bands.

When you're writing something new, writing something that's your own, basically you have nothing else to do except either invent a trick, use someone else's trick, or have no trick and get a bad performance.

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 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.

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

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

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.