“You were born with compassion, only that also means that when people are cruel to you it cuts you deep. You won't understand that you have to walk right up to the ones who are being hateful and laugh in their faces and earn their respect. Instead you'll try to figure out what you did to make them mad at you.”

“It's not to pretend you can do everything, but if people like you – in the sense of admiring or having respect for what you are trying to do – then they will understand the odd blemish. If people don't like you, and lack confidence in what you are trying to do, they won't forgive you anything.”

“In the end, I've found that it doesn't really matter who you marry. If you like them at the beginning, you probably won't like them at the end. And if you start off hating them, there's always the chance you'll end up thinking they're all right.”

“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.”

“When you clean them up, when you make movies respectable, you kill them. The wellspring of their art, their greatness, is in not being respectable.”

“As a film composer it's not your symphony. You know, that's one of the things you have to get over right away; that you are, as you say, a hired gun. You know, you can inject a lot of yourself into it, but the bottom-line is that you are working for other people. The ideal situation is where you make you happy and you make them happy, and that's usually what happens. But, yeah, ultimately you are answering to someone else and the sooner you figure that out, the longer you'll be around.”

“There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you.”

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

“Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.”

“Be authentic. Don't try to be someone you aren't. You'll hate yourself for it & the effort to maintain the facade will exhaust you. BE REAL! Many won't like the real you but that's better than having people adore the person that isn't you at all”