Quotes from Alan Menken

Music is a gestalt. Songs are a life force and they have specific vocabulary to them. You hear a few notes, and they take you into a world of association.

What I look for in a partner is a skill, a voice of their own so I have a strength to go up against. They definitely have to be able to get out of their own way. I can't take somebody being precious about their work.

Live-action films are very much a director's medium, and that director is going to be a very strong voice, a stronger individual voice than you'd have in animation.

Truth be told, of course, what I enjoy most is reinventing myself and doing new projects where I work in new genres, or I get to find what the voice of a particular musical is.

Most successful musicals need to attach themselves to something bigger than themselves, a concept that will make people feel immediately connected to it.

I will find my way I can go the distance I'll be there someday If I can be strong I know every mile will be worth my while I would go most anywhere to feel like I belong

Someday When we are wiser When the world's older When we have learned I pray Someday we may yet Live To live and let live Someday Life will be fairer Need will be rarer Greed will not pay Godspeed This bright millennium On its way Let it come Someday

What makes a monster and what makes a man?

Collaboration is all about rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and helping each other to constantly improve a piece. And, it's also about spurring each other on to doing really great, hard work - it's easier to do it in a collaboration than on your own.

My favorite experience, in general, probably was the 'Little Shop' experience, which probably was terrifying, frustrating, and exhilarating and amazing, but because it was the first, that was the one where I watched the show just launch itself for the first time and thought, 'Oh my God, I'm going to have a career.'

Collaboration is being open to each other's ideas and benefiting from each other's perspectives in an open way.

I always wanted to be a composer, and I sort of went in to NYU as pre-med because I just thought, 'Well... who actually becomes a composer?'

Composing easy? I find it easy if - big if - the idea is right, if I have the right collaborator, and if my collaborator is in the room. I like my collaborator to be in the room.

When I first started working at Disney animation, I can't tell you how many people said to me, 'Oh, man, take a powder.' Nobody takes animated musicals seriously. I swear.

Most of my collaborations, certainly post - Howard Ashman but even with Howard, are music first.

Of my Disney material, 'Tangled' is my most pop-oriented.

In animation, the directors are part of a huge team of animators who all have opinions, too. It's a much more democratic process. Also, the animation executives oversee things more.

'Snow White' was really hip for its time. Walt Disney was basically using Sigmund Romberg and operetta in the telling of the story, and through animation - that was revolutionary.

I'm not interested in being the producer of somebody else's song.

I love 'The Gospel Truth,' the song that opened up 'Hercules.' I thought that song was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed producing that and writing that.

Whether it's animated, whether it's live-action, whether it's Broadway, whether it's television, a musical is a musical is a musical. So, pretty much, you approach the songs in pretty much the same way.

Part of the job is knowing how to use this medium in the most effective way for the story you're telling, so for me, to pick a genre I want to do is a little harder. I would say it's more about thinking, 'What genre will work for what kind of story?' And then, when all of that comes, I embrace it and run with it.

I've always juggled a lot of projects because at least half the projects you do get shelved. So you have to do a lot of things in order for things to move forward.

A lot of the projects I've been involved with have been my babies, and I'm not going to give my baby to anyone else.