Now, there are sometimes making a connection between one section and another that sometimes you do want to see the pattern because it helps you to lead into the next thing – it’s a rhetorical...

Don’t think for a moment that I’m really like any of the characters I’ve played. I’m not. That’s why it’s called ‘acting’.

If Bush said just once: ‘Boy. I hope you accept my apology as a country,’ or showed some humanity.

I consider that my own personal life and anecdotes may be amusing enough and interesting enough, but they’re in a different realm.

We can use techniques in modifying things, in controlling things, but the first impulse has to be something that you simply cannot make just out of technique, or else it becomes perfectly evident that it...

The role of Rimbaud is one of the most important roles to play for a young actor.

The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation.

I’m delighted to be Number 1, but next week I don’t want people to buy my record, I want them to buy Band Aid.

When a role for a young guy is being offered to me, I think of River Phoenix. It feels like a loss.

I’ve been called a minimalist composer for more than 30 years, and while I’ve never really agreed with the description, I’ve gotten used to it.

A small town is a place where there’s no place to go where you shouldn’t.

The people who are making money are the ones who are writing and singing their own songs.

Now, what we are not talking about, what you’re really coming to, is what compromises one makes so that the listener understands somewhat of what you’re doing, what you’re trying to express.

I’m not the kind of person who tries to be cool or trendy, I’m definitely an individual.

It’s not getting any better, is it? I don’t want my 19-year-old boy going into the army. I love these little kids. They understand how passionate I am.

All I know is that when I mix to digital and when I mix to tape I compare them and the tape always wins out.

Well, no. I believe that it’s not at all impossible that some of the performances that I’ve heard so far by some pianists may be superior to my own playing because those are two totally...

If I want to go to a party with a few male friends, it doesn’t mean I’m gay.

Ideas are one thing and what happens is another.

Improvisation is terribly haphazard.

With Romeo and Juliet, you’re talking about two people who meet one night, and get married the same night. I believe in love at first sight-but it hasn’t happened to me yet.

Knowing when to leave may be the smartest thing anyone can learn.

I know that there are some people who apparently operate with their eyes on the paper. They are more guided almost by the pattern.

Of all the arts, music is really the most abstract.

I’ve always been spontaneous and outgoing… I’ve tried lots of things so I’ve got some good life experiences, which is great ’cause it means I’ve got lots of material to work with as an actor.

Never be ashamed to write a melody that people remember.

I distrust anything that you don’t hear.

What it looks like on paper may be interesting enough, but what the listeners hears is ultimately what stays with him, that he is concerned with.

My mother is a walking miracle.

We need not destroy the past. It is gone.

In postscript let’s just say that I am very fortunate cause I’ve gotten to work with a lot of great bands!

I got attention by being funny at school, pretending to be retarded, and jumping around with a deformed hand.

Because I was small, I was getting the hell kicked out of me playing football.

A person improvising is sometimes very fortunate that just at that second things coincide.

Some I made, that I definitely wanted in a certain way, and some I simply decided to leave to the discretion, to the impact of the performer, himself.

I was always the kid in school who tried to get attention, not necessarily the class clown, but I’d do little unexpected performances.

The music is the last thing I’m thinking about right now, in order of what’s important.

Hey bands, you’re all welcome to fly me to some exotic location and I’ll record you there, Y’know that right? You don’t have to come to this God forsaken place. Hope I can visit you...

When I was speaking about communicating, I meant that the listener – we have to reach the listener; otherwise, of course, you’re writing the piece, as I say, only for the satisfaction of seeing it...

The good thing about acting is that it always keeps you on your toes… It’s not like any other job where you can go in and do the same thing as yesterday.

We are involved in a life that passes understanding and our highest business is our daily life.

In writing music, the structure of each piece is a very important factor.

I really don’t know what I’m doing… I don’t. It’s terrible. I go in there and I learn how to be like the character and do the best I can, and that’s all I really...

He told me, ‘Don’t give me an album of pop songs like people will expect, songs that will get played on the radio. Take some risks.’

Because essentially Schoenberg was an extremely gifted man. And in spite of many of his theories and so on, when he really began to write music, he still was guided very much by his internal...

The danger of that – and there’s a grave danger that I, myself, have to be very aware of – is that you become so involved and intrigued in the language that sometimes you lose...

I want to be a jerk like the rest of my friends, and have fun, and not care about the consequences, but I just can’t now.

I felt alienated at school, and I never did well with girls.

I think recordings have been a terrific advance because now, when you have a piece of music, particularly something that appears to the listener very complicated, there’s really a push to the world to try...

Yes, well, I tell you, because once I have completed a work, I simply am interested only in what I may hear in the next work that’s coming.