Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
Suddenly a mist fell from my eyes and I knew the way I had to take.
Oral musical traditions are rooted in assured and scrupulous faith.
Writing tonal music now, you are not writing into the 19th Century.
Whatever works for the piece I'm thinking about is the way I write.
Tradition is the spreading of fire and not the veneration of ashes.
Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier.
The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
I don't know if I've ever written a song that wasn't on assignment.
I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.
Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn.
The one true comment on a piece of music is another piece of music.
The more controlled, limited and tormented art is, the freer it is.
If I decide to be an idiot, then I'll be an idiot on my own accord.
If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.
Yes, sampling has changed not just my way of playing and composing.
I had a calling to become what I became - I was created to do this.
Hopefully, I have a certain amount of what you call musical talent.
We're chronically sleep-deprived as a culture. We're constantly on.
Public notice does not necessarily accord with internal fulfilment.
The oldest sibling always knows things that the younger ones don't.
A great work is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty.
Don t play this piece fast. It is never right to play ragtime fast.
Acceleration is finite, I think, according to some laws of physics.
To my eyes and ears the organ will ever be the King of Instruments.
For a solo work I need a definite idea. For the present I have none.
Shiraz' is an important part of our filmmaking and cultural history.
I am the slave of an internal power more powerful than my education.
Love or not, I wouldn't subject a wife to the road. It's punishment.
[on Richard Wagner] A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.
Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise.
A good Cuban cigar closes the doors to the vulgarities of the world.
I don't know if I'm striving for anything that I can put into words.
I'm not very sympathetic to the tendency to bring art to the people.
It's crucial that people are on the right measure at the right time.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.
In Bach, the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God.
I felt Brighton was a perfect ending to a really interesting career.
I score everything by hand on manuscript paper and then make copies.
My father started me out on the flute and I began going to teachers.
Vivaldi didn't write 400 concertos; he wrote one concerto 400 times.
Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.
For me, electronic music is the classical music of the 21st century.
If you don't go over the top you can't see what's on the other side.
My masters are strange folk with very little care for music in them.
My things really are written with an appalling lack of practicality!
If my work is accepted, I must move on to the point where it is not.
What right do I have to be in the woods, if the woods are not in me.
My success is not due to any personal superiority over other people.