David Friedman Quotes

I've been doing my big theater projects, which take years, and writing a song here and there.

Composition is definitely what I'm born to do, and it came last.

When I got to Broadway, I conducted five Broadway shows.

In the music industry, we value large success. I realized that while I would like that, that it's not what my writing is about. And if I start making it about that, it becomes impure.

My career keeps shifting; I keep doing the next thing and it keeps growing.

When my writing really started to take off was when I made a decision that I would write only what I wanted to write, and if 10 people wanted to hear it, that's fine.

I'm not totally altruistic. I've always had great career ambitions. But it has to come out in an organic way. If you push yourself out beyond where you are supposed to be, there's this pressure.

For Hunchback, we needed this live, gigantic choir. So we went to London and said, This is Disney! I need singers who can sing high D's, hold them for 18 seconds, and do it 60 times!

As time goes by, I realize that I do trust the wind. And I often write my songs for myself.

There is no seam between my songs and myself-they really are me. It's not like I'm performing; I'm just singing stuff that I really believe.

I think of my songs as there to be something to move people emotionally.

I have a musical called Goodbye and Good Luck, based on a Grace Paley short story. I also have King Island Christmas, and there are 20 different productions of it this year.

It sometimes feels like I'm not doing anything.

I wanted to produce Nancy LaMott's albums, so I created my own record company.

It's an interesting line that I walk. The AIDS crisis has done a lot for my songs and made them proliferate, and my songs have contributed a lot to that cause as well.

I have been writing since I was about 20, and at first I wrote in secret and never showed anybody. I was very concerned about making a living, so I conducted.

I don't like to produce albums. I hate producing albums, as a matter of fact, because I'm an obsessed mixer and I can't leave it alone.

Corn ethanol can help in the short term, but it has serious limitations, and none of this is going to work if we don't dramatically improve the efficiency of our cars and trucks.

I know a lot of people who have tremendous commercial success and they go directly for it. There's something that has always been difficult about that for me.

I'm not comfortable singing in front of people yet. That's going to take another 100 performances.