I think that one of the things that influences me most as a composer is to what extent I can deconstruct and reconstruct the material that I'm working with.

There's an awful lot of resources that can be drawn upon in an improvised music concert.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed doing was taking raw sound from locations during the film, like the candy machine, and writing pieces of music to go with them, which is totally unnecessary within the context of the film, because they have their own logic.

Chris Cutler was kind enough to offer his company as an umbrella, so now I can have all my back catalogue under one roof as it were, and it has the same feeling as with Daniel; this is a matter between friends rather than businessmen.

I think that one of the things that influences me most as a composer is to what extent I can deconstruct and reconstruct the material that I'm working with.

Not necessarily in one concert, but they're all there to be used if you want to use them.

Some things don't wind up sounding like you'd expect, which is just as well.

You could say that everything the musicians have learned and known over the years, all of their technical resources, are in a dialogue with the things they are discovering every time, as if it was the first time.

As an improviser I'm now pretty comfortable with trios, so I'm thinking of working up to quartets.

There are always things to examine. What's great is not feeling that I have to refuse any of them. Maybe no good from a PR perspective, but from the point of view of everyday life, it keeps things interesting.

We went through this business of me writing out all the parts for these old songs from Gravity and Speechless and we'd been performing that, but we don't do that any more.

The totality of a record is usually beyond ones ability to imagine when you start working on it, but the component parts are, usually, fairly clear one way or another.

We played some gigs in Switzerland a couple of weeks ago and it was the first time I really felt the group was really a band in the sense of something I could write for.

I don't know if I'm striving for anything that I can put into words.

Well, I think music for kids is never anything but experimental is it?

We play melodic music, we play songs, we play all kinds of things and when you improvise you don't just shut out different languages, you use all the languages that you have.

I write with a mouse, because it has no psychological associations or memories or habits associated with it.

And so many of the kinds of labels you get stuck with don't really tell the story; Progressive, Art Rock, Noise Music, Downtown - it ends up being a struggle to stay out of debates that other people are having around you.

If you write songs you have an idea how they're going to sound.

It's like learning a language; you can't speak a language fluently until you find out who you are in that language, and that has as much to do with your body as it does with vocabulary and grammar.

I remember playing football dressed in peculiar costumes with some friends in France and laughing so hard we couldn't even stand up, let alone kick the ball.

Improvised music involves a lot of intuition and I like developing intuition.

I think things changed as a result of a certain perception of our politics. When we went through our zealous, self-righteous period it didn't exactly win us any friends.

'Job Killer.' Those are the two words you are most likely to hear uttered by most American CEOs when confronted with proposals to enact family-friendly work policies.

The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink.

You don't ever want to devalue music. Music is important; it's necessary product. I always try to make sure that there's a value - that people appreciate music and realize that there's a value to it.

So much of the habitat destruction and pollution is based on the simple principle that we somehow have been given free license over other species to degrade the planet.

When I was a kid, I'd wake up extraordinarily early every morning and turn on the television, scanning for episodes of 'The Jetsons.' For some reason, I loved the notion of a future where there would be flying cars, supercomputers, and most of all, robot maids to take care of the chores.

Almost everybody embraces life.

Speaking the truth, once you have started it, is too exhilarating to draw back.

I'm a hometown girl, and my personality at home is the opposite of the performer in me. But then, when I'm home and haven't done anything for a while, I get really itchy and nervous and weird-feeling.

In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.

I've never had an exclusive relationship to a room where I write. I used to want one.

One of the happiest moments in life is when you find the courage to let go of what you cannot change.

Don't let the grass grow under your feet

You're really creative when you're in an environment that you don't know how to handle. So collaborating was like that for me. I think that was one of the reasons why I knew I was gonna get a challenging reaction.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

For fossils to thrive, certain favorable circumstances are required. First of all, of course, remnants of life have to be there. These then need to be washed over with water as soon as possible, so that the bones are covered with a layer of sediment.

Everyone talks to their dog, and then in your mind the dog talks back. A talking dog can provide the words that a stunted protagonist finds difficult to muster.

I am a complete sentimentalist when it comes to clothes. I have so many memories attached to them that I can't throw anything out.

You know you are in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

So when they win, it's their hard work. And when they lose, it's their bad luck.

You always feel like rock critics are frustrated musicians. I envy musicians their ability to live their art and share it with an audience, in the moment.

I literally tried every sport and was miserable. Soccer couldn't hold my attention. I couldn't figure skate. I'm afraid to swim. So I did dance for five years. It came a time where I was getting a little bit bored with it.

I think it is just stupid economics for a government to approach economic management from a strand of thinking regarding unions as enemies.

No machines will ever truly fully figure the brain out, because the brain's performance is constantly altered or else constrained by this inanimate, rogue artifact you can't control, namely, speech.

It's a funny thing about rap, that when you say 'I' into the microphone, it's like a public confession. It's very strange.