Randy Newman quotes:

I have owned and played a Steinway all my life. It's the best Beethoven piano. The best Chopin piano. And the best Ray Charles piano. I like it, too.

Crank up the Beach Boys, Baby.

Thank God for the potholes on memory lane.

Short people got no reason to live.

I am not overlooking any mail. I'm looking at all of it. I even wrote back to the Viagra people.

If I were to die tomorrow, I think they'd say Newman 56, composer of the hit song, Short People. Jumped off a mountain today.

I like science - geography, meteorology, cosmology.

Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.

My music has a high irritation factor. I`ve always tried to say something. Eccentric lyrics about eccentric people. Often it was is joke. But I would plead guilty on the grounds that I prefer eccetricity to the bland.

If you have a kid and you try irony out on them, they don't get it at 7, 8 years old. You can't really hide the Internet from kids. It worries me some particularly because I've done Disney and Pixar stuff.

It's very hard to get rich and famous at a young age and handle it well.

It's funny; people get so doctrinaire about music. It should be the last thing you don't have an open mind about.

What I'm most pleased about is that there's no particular decline. The songs I wrote 40 years ago are no worse and no better - there's a consistency.

I like the idea of taking a true classic written by a true genius and destroying it essentially! I like the idea of bringing it down to earth a bit - and even a bit lower than that.

I'm pretty proud of my film music in general.

God bless the potholes on Memory Lane.

I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that's not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.

Rednecks' always made me nervous to play, but I'm glad I wrote it and I continue to play it. It's just that the language is so rough.

I like the idea of taking a true classic written by a true genius and essentially destroying it!

You've got troubles, I've got 'em too. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. We'll stick together to see it through cause you've got a friend in me.

You know, they say you can reduce genius to someone who spent 10,000 hours trying to get good at something. I'm not claiming either one of those. I haven't done anything for 10,000 hours but sleep. But you do stuff enough, you get better at it. Usually it's a simple thing like that. Essentially, a brainless endeavor.

Most of my songs are about insensitivity of some kind.

I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.

Mostly, I don't write overtly personal stuff.

If we'd had another carefree 70s, I'd have been dead. It was a little too carefree, you know? I don't know how carefree they were for me, I think I was worried then, I can't remember what about.

I've worked with a band, and it's nice to have someone to travel around with, but I didn't like it as well on stage.

I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn't have anyone else to blame.

I seen her with the milkman, riding down the street. When you're through with my baby, milkman, send her home to me.

This one guy's wife is such a pretty brown thing, that I'm liable to give her a poke or two. Whaddaya think of that?

I think the tax cut is ridiculous but so am I.

My music has a high irritation factor. I've always tried to say something. Eccentric lyrics about eccentric people. Often it was a joke. But I would plead guilty on the grounds that I prefer eccentricity to the bland.

If we'd had another carefree 70's, I'd have been dead. It was a little too carefree, you know? I don't know how carefree they were for me, I think I was worried then, I can't remember what about.

Stay away from drugs. They're not worth it. I've tried, but there's none of them that's worth it.

I don't remember ever having writer's block. If I sit in there for four hours, I'll usually have something.

And the Lord said: I burn down your cities - how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That's why I love mankind.

Asia's crowded and Europe's too old, Africa is far too hot and Canada's too cold. And South America stole our name, let's drop the big one.

But I don't want to sing everything out of the side of my mouth, I want people to understand what I mean.

But if you're doing something, show up everyday, and something good might happen - it's not going to happen if you don't show up.

Cleveland, city of light! City of magic!

College men from L.S.U., went in dumb, come out dumb, too.

Don't forget to bring that little blonde haired girl along. You know the one, love to watch her jump up and down.

He got drunk last night, kicked Mama down the stairs. But I'm alright, so I don't care.

I ain't saying that I'm better than you, but maybe I am.

I always thought my best album was 'Trouble in Paradise.' I was the happiest with that one.

I am half a man, holy Jesus, what a drag.

I hate having to wait.

I like Public Enemy a great deal.

I like to write my lyrics on clay tablets.

I once had dinner with Madonna and I wasn't nervous but within about a minute I found myself talking about underwear.

I realized that, instead of moving people closer to a salvation decision, an answer can push them further away. Rather than engaging their minds or urging them to consider an alternative perspective, an answer can give them ammunition for future attacks against the gospel.

I sit here in this chair, I pour myself some whiskey, and watch my troubles vanish into the air.

I'd like to explain why you fine young men had to be blown apart to defend this mud hole.

If getting on the radio was a major motivation, I'd be one of the worst writers of all time. I admire people who do it, and I think it's a nice way to work, but I try to do the best I can and write what I like. I don't worry about it.

I'm dreaming of a white president.

In England, in France, in no other country would a black man have a chance to get elected. There's no two ways about it. Our country [USA] has been better about dealing with immigration and people who are different from each other than any other country in the world, that I know of.

It takes a whole lot of medicine for me to pretend I am somebody else.

It's a big surprise to me about America that there are 40 million people prepared to vote for (Trump). They wouldn't want him as a friend. No matter who you are, you wouldn't want him on your bowling team or to have dinner with him or anything. They would recognize it immediately in a guy. A big blowhard, braggart.

I've always had a lot of respect from the people I respected.

I've often written about places that are totally different from anything I know. Sometimes they turn out better.

I've written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.

I've written about a lot of different things, but the whole idea of writing for another character is unusual for pop music. Most of the repertory is love songs, and most of mine isn't. I don't know if that's a mental defect, or shyness, or what.

People become who they are. Even Beethoven became Beethoven.

Some day you do something where you use everything you know. You don't do it ostentatiously where you see the workings going on. But some day, if you're lucky, that will happen.

Some fools in the desert with nothing to do...invented me, and they invented you. And other fools keep it all going and growing. Everybody, we're a figment of their imagination...

Sometimes what I'm writing is more important to me than the rest of my life. It's more important to me that I'm writing well than anything else.

Still, it's clear that there are lots of people out there who are uncomfortable [about racism]. The Civil War was a long time ago but there are aspects of it that remain unsettled,

The belief in the '70s was that music was changing the world. I never believed that it had that great an effect. The effect Madonna had on fashion and sort of mores of young girls was a bigger deal than anything Dylan may have said, even.

The best of my songs are more than just a joke. There's something else going on - a character, or it's not just a plain joke.

The easiest thing I do is assignment songs. They tell me what they need me to write. I can do that fairly quickly. Writing for an orchestra is difficult. Writing songs [on your own] is most difficult of all. Though [writing for] the orchestra is close.

The radio is blastin', someone's knockin' at the door. I'm lookin' at my girlfriend, she's passed out on the floor.

There's a million white people better qualified than a black man to be president of America.

They don't respect us, so let's surprise them, we'll drop the big one, pulverize them.

Things aren't black and white in the world.

This is the Republican Party who has run against Russia for 80 years and you know, (Trump) hasn't mentioned (Putin) except in a positive way.

To get nominated by the Republican Party you've got to be pretty reactionary, really.

We don't know our ass from a hole in the ground.

We'll have a kid or maybe we'll rent one. He's got to be straight, we don't want a bent one.

Who would want to break into [the music business]? It's like a bank that's already been robbed.

Writers have always liked my stuff, pretty much. That's what I wanted - I think my goal wasn't to get rich and famous, necessarily, though I cared about that. I always thought, "Oh, this could be a hit," or "that will sell records." But the first thing I wanted was that people who knew a lot about music, or had taste-making qualities, they would like my stuff. Writers, people like that.

You keep wondering whether people will see that Barack Obama is a liar and not very bright.