I wake up each and every day with a smile on my face knowing I get to do something musically.

Harmony is an obscure and difficult musical science but most difficult to those who are not acquainted with the Greek language because it is necessary to use many Greek words to which there are none corresponding in Latin.

I would like to do a science fiction film some day. Star Wars seems really to have destroyed the genre which at one time offered great musical opportunities.

In our culture we have such respect for musical instruments they are like part of God.

First play I ever did was 'Footloose.' I played the part of Willard when I was 16. I think I wore my drama teacher's jeans and her belt - that's how small I was. I know a lot of Willard's back story from the musical that's not explored in the film. Like he's got this whole relationship with his mama and he sings this song 'Mama Says.'

Hopefully each film can be given a musical voice of its own which is not to say that the instrumentation is always unique but that the relationship between the sound and the image is unique.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.

Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one.

The lines of poetry the period of prose and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted are those which are felt to be preeminently musical.