I enjoy the process of composing music. The first time I hear a song, it has to bring a smile to my lips. You have to tap your feet and be able to sing the song.

I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music, but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time.

Poetry is composing for the breath.

I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2,000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.

Composing music is hard work.

In a crazy way, writing is a lot like any kind of very complex game - like chess, where you have the knowledge as you're composing all of the ramifications of each move, of each choice you make.

While it is true that Frank had a great sense of humor, he was also very serious about composing music. In reality there are only a handful of skilled players who can play his most complex pieces. It takes a lot of patience to learn and requires a fantastic memory.

While the concert is instant communication with the audience, composing is a creative process where a song comes up out of nowhere and then transmits happiness to many, translates into money, fame, or whatever.

So the next time you see a person with a compose face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the powers of quiet.

I began composing the next poem, the one that was to be written next. Not the last poem of those I had read, but the poem written in the head of someone who may never have existed but who had certainly written another poem nonetheless, and just never had the chance to commit it to ink and the page.

When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.

"Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own, three times over, [Marvin] was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby.

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time.

I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel read 2 000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.

Poetry is composing for the breath.

I've been composing music all my life and if I'd been clever enough at school I would like to have gone to music college.

Composing gives me a chance to work in multiple dimensions and helps me pare down my melodies into what is essential. Learning new skills has always energized me and scoring has opened up a world of sonic possibilities.

While it is true that Frank had a great sense of humor he was also very serious about composing music. In reality there are only a handful of skilled players who can play his most complex pieces. It takes a lot of patience to learn and requires a fantastic memory.