Alan Menken

When I was younger, I'd get very invested in things. It's a hard lesson to learn, but you have to know that if you want to find gold, you've got to love the process of digging. ”

I love 'The Gospel Truth,' the song that opened up 'Hercules.' I thought that song was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed producing that and writing that. ”

My favorite experience, in general, probably was the 'Little Shop' experience, which probably was terrifying, frustrating, and exhilarating and amazing, but because it was the first, that was the one where I watched the show just launch itself for the first time and thought, 'Oh my God, I'm going to have a career.' ”

If you're writing for yourself as an artist, you are always pulling on your own experiences. ”

I have the ability to clear the decks and focus on what's happening in the moment. And I get to spend my life doing what I love to do. ”

Music is a gestalt. Songs are a life force and they have specific vocabulary to them. You hear a few notes, and they take you into a world of association. ”

I was always a composer since I was a kid, but the BMI Workshop is where the networking really all stems from. So many writers and influences and ways of communicating all sprang out of the time I was a member of that workshop. ”

There's plenty of examples of films where they're greenlit to move forward, and they want to get X actor. And they don't get X actor, so they go with Y, and it doesn't turn out to be as good of a movie as it should have been. ”

Live-action films are very much a director's medium, and that director is going to be a very strong voice, a stronger individual voice than you'd have in animation. ”

Whether it's animated, whether it's live-action, whether it's Broadway, whether it's television, a musical is a musical is a musical. So, pretty much, you approach the songs in pretty much the same way. ”