Able Quote by Arnold Newman

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

— Henry David Thoreau

You have to know composition to be a good improviser.

— Roscoe Mitchell

For musical compositions to reach a high level and to derive from spontaneity, of course, one has to do the necessary steps to learn…

— Ilaiyaraaja

Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.

— Gustav Holst

Composition is selective improvisation.

— Igor Stravinsky

Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics think that they know how to write, because they have studied grammar and rhetoric; but they are egregiously mistaken.…

— Henry David Thoreau

There are no rules when I compose songs.

— Juan Gabriel

It's not instant composing; it's not following any kind of a formula. All you do is hear music in your head and reproduce it.

— Lennie Tristano

Composition is interesting because, in a sense, you always have to let it go. Unless you're a true composer/performer, you're always sending a PDF…

— Nico Muhly

Composing is sort of an intuitive act. You have to put yourself in the right frame of mind.

— Howard Shore

To compose is to remember music that has never been written.

— Robert Schumann

I've composed a fair amount in my life, and some of them have made it on to the screen, some compositions that I've done,…

— Scott Bakula