Quotes from Andrew Lloyd Webber

I haven't written a score that's going to change the Western world or the musical as we presently know it.

In Evita I wasn't really hugely involved with it. I gave a little bit of help but they needed a bit of technical help on the movie and so some of my music people went in at the end of the movie and helped out with it.

Two pieces of advice for young composers: Go away during technical rehearsals. And do not have a back operation.

Since 'School of Rock' opened, for the first time in my career, ever, really, I've had a lot of projects offered to me. It's extraordinary. Normally, I've initiated them all myself.

After I had prostate cancer, I had something which was misdiagnosed which led to a load of back operations.

I've often thought that we left the original 'Phantom' with a little bit of a cliff hanger, and I thought, 'Well, why not to do a sequel to it' at one point.

What strikes me is that theres a very fine line between success and failure. Just one ingredient can make the difference.

The arts are the one thing that appeal right across all forms of politics, race, creed - everything.

I would have gone right ahead but the only thing, the only phenomenon that's going on now of course, which is different in my experiences, is that you are getting things planted in the Net by people about the Woman in White on the Net. That's not a nice change.

The one thing I have always felt about musical theatre is that it is, to an extraordinary degree, about construction.

Well the least favourite question is the one that one's asked particularly about in Japan is what's the difference between theatre and cinema and I think, well, that's about eighty bucks.

I knew nothing about film at all. I suppose the biggest surprise is all these things. In the theatre we sort of do, I might do two or three key interviews and that would be it.

I guess we've had a very close relationship because I don't pretend to know about cinema and I think I do know a bit about theatre but he does, he respected that and so we really just had a collaboration which went completely like this.

I think that the wonderful advantage we have in the film of being able to cast a girl as young as Emmy and which we couldn't do in the theatre of course because no girl of 16 or 17 could sing 8 shows a week, couldn't sing two.

The regrets in the theatre have always been the shows that you know ought to have worked but for one reason or another haven't.

I have lived and worked in Britain all my life. Not even in the dark days of penal Labour taxation in the Seventies did I have any intention of leaving the country of my birth.

I began to think, now is the time. I found quite a lot of opposition in Hollywood about the idea of doing a film musical and we ended up having to buy the rights back. I'm glad we did because it meant John and I were able to make exactly the movie we wanted.

I often think of random melodies. And I pretty much hear in my head what I want to do with the orchestra as I'm writing on the piano.

The fact is that 'The Wizard Of Oz' has never really worked in the theatre. The film has one or two holes where, in the theatre, you need a song. For example, there's nothing for either of the two witches to sing.

It may sound amazing to people today, but Rodgers and Hammerstein were considered by - how can I put it? - the sort of opinion-making tastemakers and everything to be 'off the scale as sentimental.'

I wonder what would have happened if automation and computers had existed when 'Oklahoma!' was having its out-of-town try-out, and three days before closing in Boston, when it was still called 'Away We Go,' they added a new song called 'Oklahoma!' I don't think that could happen today. It's almost impossible to change musicals on the go now.

I'm wondering whether to have someone go around with my mobile to completely throw everybody off the scent. I could appear in weird places.

It's interesting that the wondrous 'Hamilton,' which I could not be more ecstatic about, has taken a long time to perfect to bring it to Broadway. And it wouldn't have been possible if it was developed in the commercial theatre from the get-go.

I mean I don't really think about it. You know, do you know what I often say to myself? I think you're very lucky in life if you know what you want to do.