Quotes from David Friedman

I have been writing since I was about 20, and at first I wrote in secret and never showed anybody. I was very concerned about making a living, so I conducted.

For Hunchback, we needed this live, gigantic choir. So we went to London and said, This is Disney! I need singers who can sing high D's, hold them for 18 seconds, and do it 60 times!

There is no seam between my songs and myself-they really are me. It's not like I'm performing; I'm just singing stuff that I really believe.

I'm not comfortable singing in front of people yet. That's going to take another 100 performances.

I know a lot of people who have tremendous commercial success and they go directly for it. There's something that has always been difficult about that for me.

As a person, I'm not that hopeful, but somehow the hopeful part of me reveals itself through my songs.

I may not be the most famous songwriter in the world, but you know a David Friedman song when you hear it. It took me a long time to appreciate that.

I was talking to my spiritual advisor. I got a letter from somebody who said that they were about to kill themselves, but they listened to a song of mine and it saved their lives.

My career keeps shifting; I keep doing the next thing and it keeps growing.

I write and direct the Duke University Children's Hospital Benefit every year.

I've been doing a lot of studying singing, and I'm thinking of recording an album containing all my old war horses and putting out a songbook at the same time.

Corn ethanol can help in the short term, but it has serious limitations, and none of this is going to work if we don't dramatically improve the efficiency of our cars and trucks.

I think of my songs as there to be something to move people emotionally.