“So there are more songs on the stage because the songs are kind of the close up.”

I’ve been very fortunate as a composer to be involved with projects that have really propelled my scores forward. I’m very proud of it.

Everything else is relative levels of hell.

The best parts about writing a show are [its] first, second and 10th anniversaries.

If you write enough musicals you pretty much have a sense of where they should go.

Having a tradition is a great thing to work within, and maybe today [it] is the only way to really land musically dramatic work.

And all these people really wanted to reinvigorate the animated musical, so they came to Howard Ashman and me. That was my entry into Disney.

And, it’s also about spurring each other on to doing really great, hard work.

So you have to do a lot of things in order for things to move forward.

Whether it’s animated, whether it’s live-action, whether it’s Broadway, whether it’s television, a musical is a musical is a musical.

I don’t write songs for myself anymore. I only write songs on assignment.

What brought me to Disney was the new regime, which is now the old regime, came over with Michael Eisner, Frank Wells, Jeffrey Katzenberg.

I’ve always juggled a lot of projects because at least half the projects you do get shelved.

It’s purely a business, but it is still so important to me emotionally.

So, pretty much you approach the songs in pretty much the same way.

Collaboration is being open to each other’s ideas and benefiting from each other’s perspectives in an open way.

Collaboration is all about rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and helping each other to constantly improve a piece.

The devil abhors light and truth because these remove the ground of his working.

Any man who makes a speech more than six times a year is bound to repeat himself, not because he has little to say, but because he wants applause and the old stuff gets it.

Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.

Personally, I’d never seen a graphic novel. I knew they existed because friends of mine like Jonathan Ross collect them and some very literate and intelligent people really rate the graphic novel as a form.

Because the Lord Jesus died on the Cross, I have received forgiveness of sins; because the Lord Jesus rose from the dead,

Because, let’s face it, I do not get offered the parts that Brad Pitt has just turned down.

At some point in time, you definitely have to go drama. Not to say that you’re going drama just because everybody else does it.

Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.