John Williams

“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not...”

“In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false...”

“He had come to that moment in his age when there occurred to him, with increasing intensity, a question of such overwhelming simplicity that he had no means to face it. He found himself wond...”

“The poets say that youth is the day of the fevered blood, the hour of love, the moment of passion; and that with age comes the cooling baths of wisdom, whereby the fever is cured. The poets...”

“You must remember what you are and what you have chosen to become, and the significance of what you are doing. There are wars and defeats and victories of the human race that are not militar...”

“I feel very lucky, and the work that I do doesn't depend on much. If your vision's still good, and your hands - I have no arthritis in my hands, and I play the piano very easily - I don't th...”

“When we see Rey, we want to hear Rey's theme, and when the Force is referred to or felt, we want to hear the Force theme, and so on. We hope that these references make sense to the fans and...”

“Any working composer or painter or sculptor will tell you that inspiration comes at the eighth hour of labour rather than as a bolt out of the blue. We have to get our vanities and our preco...”

“Composing music is hard work.”

“Working in Hollywood for the orchestra world is a very time consuming and laborious job.”

“I fell in love immediately with Daisy Ridley. She is just a superstar born.”

“There are occasionally eureka moments - off the top of my head, maybe Darth Vader's theme, you know, the imperial march.”

“So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it's gratifying to have something you have done linger in people's memories.”

“I don't make a particular distinction between 'high art' and 'low art.' Music is there for everybody. It's a river we can all put our cups into and drink it and be sustained by it.”

“As a young pianist in Hollywood, I began orchestrating for others, and I just felt really comfortable doing that.”

“When you think about Boston, Harvard and M.I.T. are the brains of the city, and its soul might be Faneuil Hall or the State House or the Old Church. But I think the pulsing, pounding heart o...”

“I, over the years, have always felt more comfortable if I could go into a projection room and look at a film and not really know what to expect. If you read the script first, you form all ki...”

“I'm not a frustrated concert composer, and the concert pieces I've done have been a small part of my work. What I've sought there is instruction, variation from the demands of film and relie...”

“As a youngster, I never dreamed there could be a career actually earning a living writing music.”

“I was never that into the movies. Never. Even as a youngster. I became interested in movie music only because of the studio orchestras in Hollywood.”