Mostly, I don't write overtly personal stuff.

And the Lord said: I burn down your cities - how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That's why I love mankind.

Sometimes what I'm writing is more important to me than the rest of my life. It's more important to me that I'm writing well than anything else.

You know, they say you can reduce genius to someone who spent 10,000 hours trying to get good at something. I'm not claiming either one of those. I haven't done anything for 10,000 hours but sleep. But you do stuff enough, you get better at it. Usually it's a simple thing like that. Essentially, a brainless endeavor.

There's a million white people better qualified than a black man to be president of America.

I'm pretty proud of my film music in general.

People become who they are. Even Beethoven became Beethoven.