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

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.

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

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.

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.

What you’ll need, and when; how to pull people on that journey.

It’s easier to do it in a collaboration than on your own.

You know I was a shy guy and people didn’t know that and still don’t know it today. I’m sure basketball brought my shyness out because of the fact that you have to do interviews, and that people are always talking to you in terms of the fans and everything.

I was brought up to believe that the Christian God wasn’t a scared and compromising public servant, but the creator of the whole merciless truth, and I reckon that training spoiled me – I actually took my teachers seriously!

This was due to a kind of increased existential awareness that resulted from this confrontation with the death of another. And I think it brought them in touch with their own death, so they began to experience a kind of preciousness to life that comes with an experience of its transiency.

Love gives itself; it is not bought.

I remember I took a music course in junior year of high school, and some girl brought in ‘Teardrops On My Guitar,’ and she was like, ‘Isn’t this song great?’ And everyone was like, ‘Who’s Taylor Swift?’ And now, every time I listen to Taylor Swift, I remember that moment.

I was brought up by two women: my mother and my grandmother.

You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we’re all brought up differently.’

Those who play with the devil’s toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword.