If not bliss, ignorance can at least be fun.

Even if I went off to some other career, I hope I would still be doing Coen films.

I like business and personal life to be distinct.

I just love the sheer mess of New York.

I have always loved Scottish music - all sorts of Celtic, Gaelic music.

I had piano lessons when I was a kid, like most people. And hated them, like most people. And quit, like most people.

I don't personally see my work as being dark. What interests me is a balance between light and dark.

I don't generally find myself listening to the music of a film unless there's something awfully wrong with it.

I don't find myself lobbying for projects. Filmmakers almost always come to me.

I almost never try to make the audience comfortable. I wouldn't want that if I were in the audience.

I like the fact that New York looks a bit backwards, toward the Old World, rather than resolutely forwards.

Hopefully each film can be given a musical voice of its own, which is not to say that the instrumentation is always unique, but that the relationship between the sound and the image is unique.

Any film which views the darker side of life, which is death with a sense of humor, is very much to my taste.

Death is always around the corner, but often our society gives it inordinate help.

Connection is what one is after in probably most media, but certainly in film, which is an immersive medium.