Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written.
A prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own people.
Nobody talks about music as having intrinsic meaning, how it engages the mind.
I don't really know why I chose bass except that it was different than guitar.
Don't cry when the sun is gone, because the tears won't let you see the stars.
You explain how it went, and as far as you can figure out how it got that way.
I must say Ive always composed music from the point of view of the performers.
The most necessary, most difficult and principal thing in music, that is time.
I love the voice - it’s the most perfect instrument ever heard. It’s God given.
In my case, dust has become gold: Today, I work with people I grew up admiring.
I grew up, and I'm getting the chance to make music with the people I idolized.
Softly, deftly, music shall caress you. Hear it, feel it, Secretly possess you.
So many silly things happen with a baby around. We laugh more than we expected.
I am viewed as the Negro who has gone outside of the categories assigned to me.
Take it off, baby, take it all off. I want you the way you came into the world.
A Train was born without any effort - if was like writing a letter to a friend.
The past nine years in San Diego have represented such a period of questioning.
Give Mozart a fairy tale and he creates without effort an immortal masterpiece.
It's the lifestyle of easy money, fast cars and supermodels that keep me going.
To complete a work is just like being present at the death of someone you love.
The main thing I want to do is make people feel more connected and more active.
You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it's bad.
Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.
Now Heaven and Earth are older than the temples, and older than the Scriptures.
Before I compose a piece, I walk round it several times, accompanied by myself.
I am by far your superior, but my notorious modesty prevents me from saying so.
I wouldn't bet on a horse unless he came up to my house and told me to himself.
I carry a deep sadness of the heart which must now and then break out in sound.
If a man tells me he likes Mozart, I know in advance that he is a bad musician.
I frequently hear our present period described as uncertain, confused, chaotic.
Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not. God knows.
True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time.
I guess I am running the risk of becoming the Hans Christian Andersen of opera.
When I dealt with set theory, I could never make it be the music that I wanted.
If you go back to the roots of jazz, it was all about COLLECTIVE improvisation.
A cultural snob is someone who claims to be familiar with the incomprehensible.
The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success.
I've been dreaming of mirrors. Millions of mirrors, reflecting people to death.
A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.
A father is someone who can't get on the phone, in the bathroom or out of debt.
Free form jazz means absolutely nothing to me. Because there are no boundaries.
Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.
Händel is the greatest and ablest of all composers; from him I can still learn.
For years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart.
People ask what was the first piece of music I wrote. There was no first piece.
Music truely has to all other arts the same relation as religion to the church.
Music goes deeper than emotion into the energies that animate our psychic life.
The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.
Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.
So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.