Thomas Newman Quotes

I come from a family of musicians.

My mom was a dancer, my dad's a singer and I've always had that kind of music in my life.

I do not consider myself a guitar player. My father is a guitar player - I'm not.

I knew I could never match my father as a violinist, and there were already four generations of outstanding cellists in the family.

It's hard to live up to The Beatles. When Wings toured, they got slated. Even Dad found it hard living up to The Beatles. I started out playing under an alias because I wanted to start quietly.

To fill the shoes of rock 'n' roll, because of the family I have, is a really hard thing.

Well I'm a third-generation musician. My Grandfather's a musician and my father and mother were both musicians and so I'm a musician. It was just natural that I should be a musician 'cause I was born into the family.

I had studied piano since I was 13, but I was surrounded by students who'd been playing since they were 5. I realized I was never going to be anything but mediocre.

I come from a singing family and as is said, 'the apple does not fall far from the tree.'

I am not from a musical family.

There's a lot to live up to when three of your parents are successful in the music business.

My father was a musician, so I feel like falling into this career was a bit inevitable.

You know, it comes from my mother's side of the family. She had seven sisters and one brother, and all of them could play instruments. I suppose I picked it up from that.

My father kind of had hopes that I was going to become an artist like him - the typical thing. Of course I could play guitar better than him when I was about 12. But I couldn't paint better than him. So I went, 'I'm going to be the guitarist of the house, not the painter.'

I'd say music runs in my blood. My parents are exceptionally talented singers, so even before I was born, it was a known fact to them that I'd become a singer. Thanks to my genes, I started off at the age of three and since then, music has meant everything to me.

If I were related to Monet, I don't know if I would be comfortable becoming an artist because it's too much, the comparison. If I wrote a book and put it out, the comparison to my great-grandfather, the comparison would be hilarious. Every critic, it would be their dream, they'd tear me apart.

I love to sing. I never had any formal training. My mother is a singer, and I picked up listening to her.

My father was a singer. So it just kind of happened that one Sunday while my dad was singing, I just walked out and stood next to him, and I started singing the song that he was leading, and I sang it in perfect pitch.

I came from a huge extended family of musicians.

As the daughter of two teachers with first-class degrees, I'd always seen myself as a duffer by comparison.

When I went to drama school, I thought that everybody would think I was only there because my dad was on TV.

I had a number of very strong personalities in my family. My father was a concert flutist, the solo flute for Toscanini.

I believe I inherited my sense of music from my father. My father was an ear piano player; he could just hear something and play it.

I played with Eddie Taylor's son, Tim Taylor and Carey Bells son Lurie Bell.

When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'