Hans Zimmer Quotes

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

Such is the great nature of man, it resides the true face beneath a glittering masquerade. ~ K. Hari Kumar

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." ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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

Inspired music arises from an inspired movie which arises from an inspired script. ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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

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

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 ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

James Horner, James Newton Howard, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Michael Giacchino, or Ramin Djawadi would all be a dream come true for a 'Throne of Glass' soundtrack. ~ Sarah J. Maas

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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

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

You'll know if you're a famous composer if 20 years from now your name appears on a pull-down menu in Band in a Box, alongside Hans Zimmer. ~ Cliff Martinez

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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. ~ Hans Zimmer

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." ~ Hans Zimmer

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

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

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

To be no more than scholarly reflection on its object from one particular standpoint, which is anyway one legitimate standpoint among others. ~ Hans Kung

What is new in his theories is not true, and what is true in his theories is not new. ~ Hans Jurgen Eysenck

Information gently but relentlessly drizzles down on us in an invisible, impalpable electric rain. ~ Hans Christian Von Baeyer

It was also my idea that the advisory committees of the Academy should replace the legal committees of the German Reichstag, which was gradually fading into the background in the Reich. ~ Hans Frank

I'm holding out hope for a girl who will never, ever have a romantic feeling for me as long as she lives. It's foolish, really, that I'm prepared to die alone when I know for a fact there's a sea of lesbians somewhere I could be swimming in. ~ Kristen Zimmer

Mermaids have no tears, and therefore they suffer more. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

Hell is to be contemplated strictly as a matter which concerns me alone. As part of the spiritual life it belongs behind the 'closed door' of my own room. From the standpoint of living faith, I cannot fundamentally believe in anyone's damnation but my own; as far as my neighbor is concerned, the light of resurrection can never be so obscured that I would be allowed or obliged to stop hoping for him. ~ Hans Urs Von Balthasar

The person who prays and who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the word he desires to worship (in order to be more single-mindedly at the word's disposal) will select with great care basic works for his studies which will observe the so-called exactitude of scholarship without losing sight of the most important exactitude, namely, the ordering of all thought toward prayer. ~ Hans Urs Von Balthasar

Finally I got to carbon, and as you all know, in the case of carbon the reaction works out beautifully. One goes through six reactions, and at the end one comes back to carbon. In the process one has made four hydrogen atoms into one of helium. The theory, of course, was not made on the railway train from Washington to Ithaca ... It didn't take very long, it took about six weeks, but not even the Trans-Siberian railroad [has] taken that long for its journey. ~ Hans Bethe

Sin is in the wish to do no harm. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

I know what you want. It is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. - The sea witch. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

The general misunderstanding of a work of art is often due to the fact that the key to its spiritual content and technical means is missed. Unless the observer is trained to a certain degree in the artistic idiom, he is apt to search for things which have little to do with the aesthetic content of a picture. He is likely to look for pure representational values when the emphasis is really upon music-like relationships. ~ Hans Hofmann

Where Hans Hubermann and Erik Vandenburg were ultimately united by music, Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words. ~ Markus Zusak

A human life is a story told by God. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

Uther: "I wish you were a foolish woman I could despise, damn you"
"If your priests are right," said Viviane calmly, "I am already thoroughly damned and you may save your breath. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

Delayed is not forgotten! ~ Hans Christian Andersen

At a certain time, an artist needs a big retrospective. At other times, they need a more focused exhibition. It's a different story each time; it's about establishing a dialogue. ~ Hans Ulrich Obrist

What you see is from outside yourself, and may come, or not, but is beyond your control. But your fear is yours, and yours alone, like your voice, or your fingers, or your memory, and therefore yours to control. If you feel powerless over your fear, you have not yet admitted that it is yours, to do with as you will. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

Two hallmarks of Homo Sapiens are decoration and self-identification. ~ Carl Zimmer

The recently ended twentieth century was characterized by a level of human rights violations unparalleled in all of human history. In his book Death by Government, Rudolph Rummel estimates some 170 million government-caused deaths in the twentieth century. The historical evidence appears to indicate that, rather than protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of their citizens, governments must be considered the greatest threat to human security. ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

It's nice if you're making a regular pop or rock album and you get ten little songs. But I really try to make the album with one big story instead of ten small stories. ~ Hans-Peter Lindstrom

Even fiction - perhaps especially fiction - has more truth in it than the author knows. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

The international monetary order is more precarious by far today than it was in 1929. Then, gold was international money, incorruptible, unmanageable, and unchangeable. Today, the U.S. dollar serves as the international medium of exchange, managed by Washington politicians and Federal Reserve officials, manipulated from day to day, and serving political goals and ambitions. This difference alone sounds the alarm to all perceptive observers. ~ Hans F. Sennholz

Hans Walter Wolff has suggested that the Sabbath is the great equalizer, for that day is a foretaste of the kingdom when all-great and small-are reckoned to be exactly equal .2' All-masters and slaves-are to engage in this most godlike activity of being at peace. ~ Walter Brueggemann

This new baseball is like a golf ball. I think there are going to be a lot more dents put in the wall at Fenway Park this year. ~ Don Zimmer

I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was The Little Mermaid, and I don't know if you remember The Little Mermaid, but it's dreadfully sad. The little mermaid falls in love with this prince, but she cannot marry him, because she is a mermaid. And it's so sad I can't tell you the details because I might weep. But anyway, as soon as I had finished this story I got outside and walked around and around the house where we lived, at the brick house, and I made up a story with a happy ending, because I thought that was due to the little mermaid, and it sort of slipped my mind that it was only made up to be a different story for me, it wasn't going to go all around the world, but I felt I had done my best, and from now on the little mermaid would marry the prince and live happily ever after, which was certainly her dessert, because she had done awful things to win the prince's power, his ease. She had had to change her limbs. She had had to get limbs that ordinary people have and walk, but every step she took, agonizing pain! This is what she was willing to go through, to get the prince. So I thought she deserved more than death on the water. And I didn't worry about the fact that maybe the rest of the world wouldn't know the new story, because I felt it had been published once I thought about it. ~ Alice Munro

Political power intoxicates the best hearts. No man is wise enough, nor good enough, to be trusted with much political power. ~ Hans F. Sennholz

Guess what? The Nazis didn't lose the war after all. They won it and flourished. They took over the world and wiped out every last Jew, every last Gypsy, black, East Indian, and American Indian. Then, when they were finished with that, they wiped out the Russians and the Poles and the Bohemians and the Moravians and the Bulgarians and the Serbians and the Croatians--all the Slavs. Then they started in on the Polynesians and the Koreans and the Chinese and the Japanese--all the peoples of Asia. This took a long, long time, but when it was all over, everyone in the world was one hundred percent Aryan, and they were all very, very happy. Naturally the textbooks used in the schools no longer mentioned any race but the Aryan or any language but German or any religion but Hitlerism or any political system but National Socialism. There would have been no point. After a few generations of that, no one could have put anything different into the textbooks even if they'd wanted to, because they didn't know anything different. But one day, two young students were conversing at the University of New Heidelberg in Tokyo. Both were handsome in the usual Aryan way, but one of them looked vaguely worried and unhappy. That was Kurt. His friend said, "What's wrong, Kurt? Why are you always moping around like this?" Kurt said, "I'll tell you, Hans. There is something that's troubling me--and troubling me deeply." His friend asked what it was. "It's this," Kurt said. "I cannot shake the crazy fee ~ Daniel Quinn

I still remember my first Giacometti exhibition, and going back to the museum every day, whenever I could, to look again and again at these long, thin stick figures, so beautiful, so graceful. That, I think, was the moment I became really obsessed by art. ~ Hans Ulrich Obrist

Egalitarianism, in every form and shape, is incompatible with the idea of private property. ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

What they are planning for us; sex, religion, money in the New World Order. Which is more corrupt? The liberal media or the multi-national corporations? Why truly big money wants your children to try drugs, even while they campaign to discourage these evils. How the brilliant scientists have come up with the proven methods to destroy your family. All you have to do is let your guard down. ~ Hans Von Seeckt

Some problems can't be solved by talking about them. ~ Kristen Zimmer

There was a terrible stretch of time in Einar's life - from the time Hans left Bluetooth until the day he met Greta at the academy - when he lived without anyone to reveal his secrets to. Lili could remember that, the feeling of biting down on one's thoughts and feelings and storing them up for no one. ~ David Ebershoff

I'm sorry."
"I didn't mean to get maudlin," Thomas said, smiling, though it was tinged with bitterness. "I guess I wanted to explain why I cling so hard to the family I've put together since then. I was so alone when my they threw me away. I don't want to be alone again."
"You aren't. You're less alone than ever. Boris loves you, and now I do too. Two people are more than one - that's simple arithmetic."
Thomas pulled him into an embrace, kissing him gently on the neck. "It is. I didn't know it was possible to love two men at the same time, but I do."
"You like having everything tidy and organized."
"Oh, I do, do I?"
"This is allowed," Hans said sternly. "That isn't allowed. Other things are allowed on Tuesdays if it's past sunset and the moon is full. It's okay if the rules change, as long as they do so in an orderly fashion ~ Jamie Fessenden

If an agency is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, then it is also judge in all conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision making will also cause and provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of the state, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding. ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

He had defended himself against death from without, and then it had carried him off from within. ~ Hans Keilson

The democracy which shows up in the United States and in England is not an ideal democracy, because the will of the people is under the pressure of property, which is in the hands of the wealthy capitalists. ~ Hans Fritzsche