Leslie Bricusse

“When I write a song, I hear the music and words at the same time - one suggests the form of the other.”

“When you live in a world of imagination, your imagination doesn't necessarily grow old with you.”

“I don't believe in giving in to old age.”

“I fell in love with the idea of writing songs when I was a child. I thought I was going to be a journalist at first, but I gradually fell in love with all these great writers like Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, who were at the peak of their powers then.”

“I wanted to grow up to be George and Ira Gershwin from the age of about six.”

“I was talking to a TV bigwig, and he said, 'Nobody under 35 knows who Sammy Davis is.' Well, you'll hear angry denials of that from younger people.”

“I think we have to assume we have one life. Though, having said that, I did write a song called 'You Only Live Twice.' I'll settle for that.”

“Writing songs and lyrics is not that different from doing the 'Times' crossword every morning. They both give you a good mental workout.”

“My view is that the great songwriting happened between 1920 and 1960. We're all, in our different ways, descended from the great songwriters of that era.”

“'Retirement' is a dirty word. Luckily, I can carry on working until I drop, provided I retain my mental abilities.”

“I think 'Scrooge' is the best of the Christmas stories. Every child warms to it because it's about one man's transformation. It's saying that it's never too late to change, and that's a good feeling to have at Christmas.”

“I'm musical in the sense that I can write a song, but I realised when I was learning the piano as a child that there were people who played it so much better.”

“The film musical is a very strange animal. They can bite you in the back, or they can do very well for you.”

“When I wake up, if I can't figure something out during the daytime and then wake up at 4 A.M., it's there immediately. I don't know if it's the subconscious mind working, but it just happens.”

“As a complete score, I love 'Sherlock Holmes' - but we cast it badly. We put Ron Moody into the part - a great Fagin, not a great Sherlock Holmes.”

“I never try to predict what will happen to any project, ever. There are so many factors. Does the public like the subject matter, the way you handle it?”

“It's much easier to write a song for a musical than just writing a song because, writing for a musical, you know what the story is about, so you know what the songs have got to say.”

“It takes a while to get a show on, and I've a number that have not yet been produced. I want to see all of them produced spectacularly before I pack it in.”

“If you can't get a word at first, it's always waiting somewhere, and it's just a case of finding it.”