Hans Zimmer Quotes

All music is based in one way or the other, or influenced through the ages, on technology.

The honest truth is that it was just traumatizing with the piano, with the authority of the piano teacher, getting rapped across the knuckles, and so whenever you put a piece of music in front of me, there's a Pavlovian reaction where it starts off.

I'm a geek and I'm a nerd, and I can listen into any piece of music. I think, I can usually tell you what orchestra it was, I can usually tell you what hall it was in. I can tell you, obviously who the conductor was, and who the composer was.

The thing that hasn't changed, and I don't think will ever change, is that the operative word in music is "play." You have to have a playfulness about it. As the world shifts, it's starting to understand more and more that to have a playfulness about any and everything is actually the way of having a better life, or being more creative, or being more productive.

What's the point of getting up in the morning unless you're gonna have an adventure? As the moments of our life are ticking away you have to be aware that it needs to be an adventure

With animated film, you have to create the sonic world; there's nothing there. You get to color things in more and you're allowed to overreach yourself a little bit more, and it's great fun.

As opposed to being on the Internet, there's something really nice about reading a book or talking to authors.

Anything can become a musical sound. The wind on telegraph wires is a great sound; get it into your machine and play it and it becomes interesting.

If I play you a piece of music, that's when you can truly look inside me.

I grew up in a house full of music, and a house that didn't have a television. We had a piano, but no television. And really, I very quickly realized that this was, you know, there was magic there, there was magic to be had, you could lose yourself in it, it was a refuge, it was joy, it was all of those things.

Inspired music arises from an inspired movie which arises from an inspired script.

There's a power that movies and music has, that can move you and motivate you to look at your neighbor in a slightly more respectful way, and look at cultures in a more inclusive way.

The challenge in scoring a sequel is, how do you not get bored? The only way around that one is to go, "Okay, let's throw everything out that we had before and let's just see it as an autonomous movie, and let's just start again."

If something happened where I couldn't write music anymore, it would kill me. It's not just a job. It's not just a hobby. It's why I get up in the morning.

When I was 13, when I was 14, when I was in England, yeah all I wanted to do was go and see The Who, go and see The Stones.

I wake up around noon, light a cigarette, get a cup of coffee, sit in the bathtub for an hour and daydream, and I usually come up with some ideas ... It's a very irresponsible life. The only decisions I make are about the notes I'm writing.

Having the great opportunity on a daily basis to sit in front of a blank page is terrifying, and at the same time really exciting. I can't actually get better at my job, because every time you finish something you start with a blank page, with nothing.

If you talk to any director, they'll say music is fifty percent of the movie.

America is a magical place, and I think my job, or the job of a lot of us European filmmakers is to just hold up America to Americans and present it to you in a new way. All I wanted to do is in a funny way say, "Look at your country. It's magnificent."

Trust me, if you're working on a $70 million movie and you're the last guy, you feel all that weight on your shoulders.

When movies first came out, maybe they were in black and white and there wasn't any sound and people were saying the theater is still the place to be. But now movies and theater have found their own place in the world. They are each legitimate art forms.

I'm homeless, in a funny way. My culture I think is completely rooted in German 19th century music I suppose.

What are you going to do when you are not saving the world.

You have to remain flexible, and you must be your own critic at all times.

I've spent my life trying to make things simpler. Because I find ultimately that complicated doesn't reach the heart.

I've never had a real job in my life. I didn't learn anything, I was terrible at school. It was just this thing. Music was all I wanted to do.

Never let your wife prevent you from buying equipment. A car will not buy a synthesizer, but a synthesizer can buy a car.

If somebody tells you there's a rule, break it.

The writing gets done away from the keyboard and away from the studio in my head, in solitude. And then I come in and hopefully have something, then I wrestle with sounds and picture all day long. But the ideas usually come from a more obscure place, like a conversation with a director, a still somebody shows you, or whatever.

A violin is nothing more than a piece of wood and a dead cat. But it's a piece of technology. So when computers came along, in the '70s, I suddenly thought, hang on a second, this is interesting. These things can become an instrument. So I just became very interested in them, and started, playing with electronics.

As the seconds of our lives are ticking away, you have to realize that life needs to be an adventure.

When all you've got is nothing, there's a lot to go around.

You have to realize I like doing big movies that appear on a big screen. So the visuals and the audio have to be of a certain quality before I start to get excited about the thing.

The lack of education means, the lack of having something I can pull out of a drawer, means I have to find something in any movie I work on that is intensely personal.

I want to go and write music that announces to you that you can feel something. I don't want to tell you what to feel, but I just want you to have the possibility of feeling something.

You're going to fail a few times, because that is the only time you actually learn something.