Danny Elfman Quotes and Sayings
Quotes by Danny Elfman

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I would have to say I might do some stuff,
but it's the film that's appealing.
I was raised on film.
My musical experience is all via film,
it's not from classical music.
- Danny Elfman

I'll just start laying out the melody exactly where I want it to fall.
And then I'll go back and fill it out.
Whereas, in other pieces I'm really just going a couple bars at a time.
- Danny Elfman

You have to write a good score that you feel good about.
At least, you're supposed to.
But, if the director hates it, it ain't going to be in the movie!
- Danny Elfman

I don't see myself necessarily having a burning desire to write a symphony.
- Danny Elfman

In Tim's films, more than most, if you miss the tone,
you don't get the film.
- Danny Elfman

So I've learned in the past, if a company approaches
me and they want something like this,
or something like that that I've done and I turn them down,
they're going to do it anyhow.
- Danny Elfman

I'm trying to interpret the film through the director's head,
but it all comes out through me.
So, a composer is kind of like a psychic medium.
- Danny Elfman

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Or certainly I would need time - which I would love
to have but there almost never is on a film -
to just spend a week with a roomful of guys laying down these patterns.
- Danny Elfman

You're allowed to rip-off another score so close that it's ridiculous.
In my opinion it's ridiculous, how closely one can
just rip-off a score that happened a year or two earlier.
- Danny Elfman

I like creating these rhythmic patterns.
These interlocking rhythmic things are really fun.
- Danny Elfman

It sounds really stupid, I hate making cosmic comments like this but,
I just let it do what it wants to do.
- Danny Elfman

Sometimes I like them artificial and sometimes I like them real.
And the reason is because sometimes I like a real close sound.
And I like a very specific snare sound and I can't
get that in the big room.
- Danny Elfman

I'll look back and I'd be better to answer that in
about three months from now.
Or when the movie comes out and I see it.
I don't even know what it is yet.
I've still been in the middle of it.
- Danny Elfman

I can't get that live and I don't have the time to take the tape,
after I've finished recording it, into a little studio
somewhere else where I can get a different kind of percussion sound.
- Danny Elfman

There's kind of a cool feel that happens every now and then.
I guess that feel is the thing that makes the score its own score.
But, I don't know exactly what that is.
So, it's hard for me to answer that question.
- Danny Elfman

I really liked doing a number of the projects and directors,
and etc., etc., I knew about half-way through that
I would never be doing that again.
It's just not me.
I really am happy as a part-time film composer,
not a full-time film composer.
- Danny Elfman

In some types of music I'm working out all the chords one bar at a time -
the whole structure,
because it's about that.
And there are other pieces which are really about -
okay,
the melody is going to start here and play through to here.
- Danny Elfman

It's hard to get a film, you know, you need a very
special film to be able to get that experimental.
But, I would love to see that happen.
I would love the opportunity to be more experimental than I am.
- Danny Elfman

I'm looking for a feel and I have to find what that
feel is before I can move on from there.
I'm not necessarily catching stuff in such a simple way -
I don't need to.
So, I'm going for something else.
- Danny Elfman

It's just hard.
I wish the studios felt there was more value in these
themes and these pieces of material -
that they're worth protecting more.
Because then it just wouldn't happen.
If the studios cared, the stuff would be stopped in a second.
- Danny Elfman

You have to nail the right tone because sometimes when
you just see his films cold,
you're not quite sure.
It's the same in - I'm trying to think of other directors with a similar sense -
David Lynch's films,
Tim's films, some of Cronenberg's stuff.
- Danny Elfman

I think that there's a lot more freedom in the low budget,
the independent films where, unfortunately,
you don't have the money, necessarily,
to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff.
But, you have a lot more freedom, very often.
- Danny Elfman

I had to do this very aggressive, big score in a very short time,
and knowing that in the beginning, middle,
and end would be this very, very famous theme,
but I still had to weave a score around it and make
it work as a score was really challenging.
- Danny Elfman

So, it becomes an exercise in futility if you write
something that does not express the film as the director wishes.
It's still their ball game.
It's their show.
I think any successful composer learns how to dance
around the director's impulses.
- Danny Elfman

Doing Tim's film is always going to be the most pleasure.
Let me just put it that way.
So, without drawing favorites one way or the other,
getting back with him and doing Mars Attacks!
was certainly a special treat.
- Danny Elfman

The first thing I do is lay out that melody and figure
out how it has to hold here and then finish to land here,
because you know in advance you're going to want the
melody to catch four things in the action.
- Danny Elfman

I think that's one of the things that has always put
me in kind of an odd niche.
It's that all of my understanding of orchestral music is via film,
not via classical music like it's supposed to be.
To me it's the same, it doesn't make any difference.
- Danny Elfman

Oh see, first off you gotta realize -
everything for me is a reconstruction or deconstruction.
I would actually say deconstruction.
Mission: Impossible would be the exception.
That would be a reconstruction- deconstruction.
- Danny Elfman

That still has to be there.
And so, it's kind of an interesting question you brought up.
Because, on the one hand, yeah, it'd be lovely.
I certainly don't see that happening.
In fact, I see the opposite happening.
- Danny Elfman

The beauty of a main title is that you establish your
main theme and maybe a bit of your secondary theme.
You plant the seed that you're going to go water later in the score.
And so, having that removed just made it so much more difficult.
- Danny Elfman

Most often the music does end up in the movie,
and sometimes there's a point where I wish that it wasn't,
just because I think the score would be more effective if there was less of it.
But, again, that's not my call.
- Danny Elfman

Say NO to the demands of the world.
Say YES to the longings of your own heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Whatever you do, do with kindness.
Whatever you say, say with kindness.
Wherever you go, radiate kindness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I say NO to the demands of the world.
I say YES to the longings of my own heart.
There is nothing I ever need to have.
There is nothing I ever need to do.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Love means not ever having to say you're sorry.
- Erich Segal

Just because it's true, I say as often as I can
in as many ways as I can form, "I sure love you."
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
and the world will be as one.
- John Lennon

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

It's work only if I say it's work,
but it's play if I say it's fun.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We disrespect ourselves and our free-will
whenever we say that we NEED to do something.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

So long as the memory of certain
beloved friends lives in my heart,
I shall say that life is good.
- Helen Keller

Everyone hears what you say.
Friends listen to what you say.
Best friends listen to what you don't say.
- Anonymous

So long as we are loved by others,
I would almost say that we are indispensable;
and no man is useless while he has a friend.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

We are injured and hurt emotionally,
not so much by other people
or what they say and don't say,
but by our own attitude and our own response.
- Maxwell Maltz

Where there is unconditional love,
there is no room for unhappiness.
Whenever I look in the mirror today,
I will say to myself: "That Is The Face Of God."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is a nurturing mother,
when you just remember to say "thank you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

My father always used to say that when you die,
if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.
- Lee Iacocca

Nothing others do is because of you.
What others say and do is a projection of their own reality.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Humans are allergic to change.
They love to say, "We've always done it this way."
- Grace Hopper

Everything we say, do, think, and feel
is a product of our personal history
and the collective history of humankind.
Our name for these histories is "prejudice."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Everything you say and do,
is a reflection of the inner you.
- Anonymous

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Know the power of kindness.
Whatever you do, do with kindness.
Whatever you say, say with kindness.
Wherever you go,
radiate your kindness to all.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Never say or do anything you wouldn't want
to be the last thing you ever said or did.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Instead of worrying about what people say of you,
why not spend time trying to accomplish
something they will admire.
- Dale Carnegie

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.
- Elbert Hubbard

A leader is best when people barely know he exists;
when his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
they will say: we did it ourselves.
- Lao Tzu

When any situation arises which tempts you to become disturbed,
say: "There is another way of looking at this."
- A Course In Miracles

I have lost my seven best friends,
which is to say that God has had mercy on me
seven times without realizing it.
He lent a friendship, took it from me, and sent me another.
- Jean Cocteau

There is nothing to do.
There is nothing to say.
There is nothing to think.
There is nothing to feel.
The River of Life just flows.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The great pleasure in life is doing
what people say you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot

Do not say, "It is morning,"
and dismiss it with a name of yesterday.
See it for the first time
as a newborn child that has no name.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Today, I say yes to forgiving.
I commit to being for-giving love
and for-giving compassion in all areas of my life.
- Sheri Rosenthal

What others say and do is a projection of their own reality.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Grace isn't just a little prayer
you say before receiving a meal.
It's a way to live.
- Jackie Windspear

I say all that happens is wonderful.
- Anais Nin

I was thinking that I might fly today.
Just to disprove all the things you say...
please be careful with me, I'm sensitive,
and I'd like to stay that way.
- Jewel

If a million people say a foolish thing,
it is still a foolish thing.
- Anatole France

Today is a Happy Day because I say it is.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We get to CHOOSE the meaning for our lives.
Our lives mean exactly what we say they do - no more, no less.
Each of us chooses their path in life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is one thing to say that something should be done,
but quite a different matter to do it.
- Aesop

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie