Quotes About Inspiration

Writing a play, you start with less, so more is demanded of you. It's as if you have to not only write a symphony, but invent the instruments as well.

The first reason for starting to do the symphony concerts was to play this new piece of mine.

If he's a true symphony artist, he knows better than that because he knows that the only truly creative musician is the jazz musician.

I first heard Mahler's second symphony aged 11 in Liverpool, and it inspired me to become a conductor.

My thing I always go back to is that sense of finishing 'Castlevania: Symphony of the Night,' and that castle flipping over, and just going, 'Oh my God, that was amazing! I have so much more to play!' It was astounding. I think I've always been chasing that. I think my entire career, I have been like, 'I want that kind of epiphany.'

Although, I am proud of all my Symphonies as they all have something special to say, my particular favourite is the Fifth. As the great Mahler expert Donald Mitchell said that if Mahler had written another Symphony, it would have been my Fifth!

Playing the Beethoven symphonies, for example, is a consummate experience for a musician because Beethoven speaks so directly to who we are as people.

To play with a symphony today is just fabulous.

I tend to write short, brief snippets - I lean toward the chamber music end as opposed to the symphony end of things.

Beethoven's fourth and seventh symphonies have a certain amount in common. Well, of course they're both written by Beethoven, but besides that, I would say their overall effect and idea is to provide the listener with an incredible sense of joy.

I love symphonies. I love string sections.

When I was five, I heard the end of Beethoven's 'Ninth Symphony' with my mother, and I got goosebumps all over my body.

Technology means the kind of music you can make on your own if you've got an imagination is amazing. It's crazy that I can sit with a Mac and a keyboard and a mic and create a symphony.

When I was just coming up, I always wanted to be able to perform to a large crowd with a symphony.

I learned all about big band arrangement and symphony arrangement and writing for strings.

I don't pretend to want to write the Great American Symphony.

When Sean and I are old, we're just going to compose weird abstract symphonies.

I started writing my own symphony. I wrote about a page and a half. My mum and dad took it into music class and gave it, pleased as punch, to the teacher, Miss Montgomery. She played it on the piano for them. So I think they're the only ones that ever heard it.

In many ways, I think about the possibility that there could still be a Yes in 100 or 200 years from now, just like a live symphony orchestra.

I got to compose for a full symphony orchestra.

If a professional musician in a symphony orchestra is playing Beethoven. But this particular orchestra have played this particular chestnut so many times, they can play it in their sleep. Does the genius remain present in the music or not?

I believe that writer's block is a symptom. It's not a disease, it's the symptom of a disease. So what I try to do is kind of do it like 'House'; write down the symptom and write down the other symptoms. Try to work backwards to figure out what the problem is.

The first writing I did was short short stories for a newspaper syndicate for which I was paid five dollars a piece on publication.

It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright side of having a child with Down syndrome and still find the time and energy to govern the state of Alaska.