“Writing music for a picture means you have to compromise with a given reference to a movie or the advice coming from the director and producer. Working on your own material, you have to be just authentic with yourself, following your subjective perspectives and ideas. There is no-one who will judge what you are doing as long as you are in the composing process. Both ways are very different but can support your input learning about the musical universe immensely.”

“If you read about African music, they believe that during the process of making this music that you come into contact with spirits from another plane. They say that this place is like a mirror of the world we live in…With the best music, you don't find the composer or the musicians within the work, you find yourself, your own feelings.”

“Sitting and writing music on your own makes you think a lot about your life. Who are you? Would you change anything about yourself? This is where it comes from. It is like having a mirror held up in front of you, looking into yourself and asking these questions.”

“I always want to try to understand why things work. I’m not interested in getting a formula without knowing what it means. I always try to dig behind the scenes, so if I have a formula, I understand why it’s there. And understanding is a very difficult notion.People think mathematics begins when you write down a theorem followed by a proof. That’s not the beginning, that’s the end. For me the creative place in mathematics comes before you start to put things down on paper, before you try to write a formula. You picture various things, you turn them over in your mind. You’re trying to create, just as a musician is trying to create music, or a poet. There are no rules laid down. You have to do it your own way. But at the end, just as a composer has to put it down on paper, you have to write things down. But the most important stage is understanding. A proof by itself doesn’t give you understanding. You can have a long proof and no idea at the end of why it works. But to understand why it works, you have to have a kind of gut reaction to the thing. You’ve got to feel it.”

“Be authentic to your dreams. Be authentic to your own idea about yourself. Grind away at your own minds and bodies until you become your own invention. Be Mad Scientists.”

“A child has this relationship to a creative force, you know? Yeah, your parents gradually, you know, they gradually shove your face in the concrete, and so do your teachers and school system and…everything’s working against you, but…but…but the force of creativity nature is not working against you - it’s right there for you, at any time! You just…you know, you just have to be ready not to judge yourself and to be open to whatever’s gonna come through you and to-to be ready to not…to not…eeeh to not judge what comes through, but be alright with it, whatever it is, cause it’s just the universe of expressing yourself.”

“If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.”

“If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much thought into your writing and not enough heart.”

“Better to work for yourself alone. You do as you like and follow your own ideas, you admire yourself and please yourself: isn’t that the main thing? And then the public is so stupid. Besides, who reads? And what do they read? And what do they admire?”

“My music cannot possibly have given you one hundredth part of the joy your music has given me.”