James Newton Howard Quotes

I love opera. I love jazz, especially Mingus. This makes me sound highbrow. I'm not.

You can never judge any music by their audience. That's the main reason people in England have a prejudice against someone like Skrillex. You judge people by their music. That's always been first and foremost.

I'm not a culture snob. So while, of course, I think the Mozart 'Requiem' or, say, Beethoven's 'Ninth' are some of the greatest works of art in the history of humankind, that's not to say the Beatles or Queen or Simon and Garfunkel aren't brilliant, beautiful, important works of art that should be sung without a sense of irony.

Music critics have made it quite clear that any composer who ever contributed a four-bar jingle to a film was to be referred to as a 'Hollywood composer' from then on, even if the rest of his output were to consist solely of liturgical organ sonatas.

I have tried to show the influence of folk music in Bollywood, in Tamil movies, in Telugu cinema.

I've never felt opera was a party I've been invited to, and maybe I've got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about it.

When I say a girl like me, I bet you think I'm just talking about being fat. How dare you fat-shame me? You think I'm talking about being black? Racist. What makes you think I'm not talking about being smart? What? You don't think a fat, black girl can be smart or something? Fat-shaming racists like you make me sick.

I hear the word 'tolerance'-tha t some people are trying to teach people to be tolerant of gays. I'm not satisfied with that word. I am gay, and I am not seeking to be 'tolerated'. One tolerates a toothache, rush-hour traffic, an annoying neighbor with a cluttered yard. I am not a negative to be tolerated.

Stereotypes abound when there is distance. They are an invention, a pretense that one knows when the steps that would make real knowing possible cannot be taken or are not allowed.

I think it's just easier for people to put you in a box or a lane because you look similar. I think that's unfair for anybody in any situation.

I had great inspiration from a Japanese composer named Toru Takemitsu. He wrote over 90 film scores and a lot of concert music, a lot of classical music, and he gave me a lot of inspiration, as well as composers from other countries.

It doesn't bother me when someone calls me a 'dumb blonde.' I'm neither dumb or blonde.

And I'm a Hailsham student - which is enough by itself sometimes to get people's backs up.

My mother was into opera and my father was into jazz, so there was a lot of jazz in the house where I grew up.

The moment you place a label on someone, you begin to treat him or her accordingly.

If you understand why a monkey in a family is always mocked and harassed, you understand why monks are rejected by all--both old and young.

It seemed from the media that we were being told that all Haitians had AIDS. At the time, I had just come from Haiti. I was twelve years old, and the building I was living in had primarily Haitians. A lot of people got fired from their jobs. At school, sometimes in gym class, we'd be separated because teachers were worried about what would happen if we bled. So there was really this intense discrimination.

Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!

Young black men are considered dangerous, expendable, threatening and part of a culture of criminality.

If a man tells me he likes Mozart, I know in advance that he is a bad musician.

Gays seem to be at the bottom of the pecking order: no matter how far down the pecking order another group is, its members still feel superior to and have no problem picking on gays.

The homosexual is a scapegoat who evokes no sympathy. Hence, he can only be a victim, never a martyr.

You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair," said Anne reproachfully. "People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is.

I’ve always been able to tell a lot about people by whether they ask me about my scar. Most people never ask, but if it comes up naturally somehow and I offer up the story, they are quite interested. Some people are just dumb: 'Did a cat scratch you?' God bless. Those sweet dumdums I never mind. Sometimes it is a fun sociology litmus test, like when my friend Ricky asked me, 'Did they ever catch the black guy that did that to you?' Hmmm. It was not a black guy, Ricky, and I never said it was.

I love Bach, I love Beethoven, I love Mozart, I love the Beatles, I love you know, Stockhausen, I love many things. But for some reason I come back to Elizabethan music because it's a little bit like the Beatles.