Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It's been thrown up to me most of my life: Why don't I just concentrate on conducting or composing or my own playing or on jazz?
There is no way Israel will deal with the Palestinians if the Palestinians do not understand the suffering of the Jewish people.
There's something fundamental to the harp that has retained its appeal my whole life. It's an instrument I am just in love with.
People who sit back and wait for somebody to take care of them are the people that if shown a way, can be useful to our society.
My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day's first picture; that was before she became a virgin.
I would also like to mention pianists like Michel Petrucciani or Chick Сorea for whom I have great admiration in the jazz field.
I like to express true emotions under the cover of melancholy: It includes fulfilment and pain, which describes human existence.
A little bit of fear means you are doing something worth doing--you are stretching...You are going outside your immediate grasp.
A simple life is good with me. I don't need a whole lot. For me, a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, barefoot on a beach and I'm happy.
Live life to the full, and become more curious every day. The more you find out about life, the richer your music-making will be.
It's impossible to be a good Christian. If you think it's easy to be a good Christian, then you're not really trying hard enough.
My whole trick is to keep the tune well out in front. If I play Tchaikovsky, I play his melodies and skip his spiritual struggle.
I believe that having an open mind is one of the most important qualities we can possess. Once our minds close, we stop evolving.
I traveled all over for about 50 years, I love a lot of places and I've been a lot of places, but I just don't care to leave home.
There are so many miserable people out there who have not fulfilled their dreams. I believe you should do something that you love.
A great melodic line is like a person's soul, and coming up with an original melody, it can be like you are illustrating the soul.
I found that jazz musicians, possibly more than their classical counterparts, wear long-standing friendships easily and gracefully.
Every great discovery I ever made, I gambled that the truth was there, and then I acted in faith until I could prove its existence.
This is the time to remember cause it will not last forever. These are the days to hold onto cause we won't although we'll want to.
Beethoven's reputation is based entirely on gossip. The middle Beethoven represents a supreme example of a composer on an ego trip.
All of us are displaced. Few people live where their great-grandparents lived or speak the language their great-grandparents spoke.
The great art of the past became great because it started to go out of the perimeters that defined art and defined new territories.
It took great courage to ask a beautiful young woman to marry me. Believe me, it is easier to play the whole Petrushka on the piano.
Sometimes you cannot produce a specific sound you want with, say, a guitar or piano, and you simply need to use electronic elements.
I've written a bunch of stuff that no one's ever heard, and I don't know if they ever will. I'm just doing it for my own edification.
When I was a young musician, the only option available to pursue secondary education in music was to attend a classical conservatory.
I don't want clever conversation, I never want to work that hard, I just want someone I can talk to, I want you just the way you are.
There are wonderful restaurants in London. I love Indian food and I like Arab food, and I go very often to the Arab restaurant Noura.
You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow. (Oscar trying to talk his way out of a speeding ticket)
I do not remember the most challenging one but I remember that many of the titles I have recorded have been quite challenging for me.
When I first tried to get a record deal for my original music, labels didn’t understand what these instruments were meant to be doing
If I need a cause for celebration, Or a comfort I can use to ease my mind, I rely on my imagination, And I dream of an imaginary time.
I liked very much when we lived in Hampstead. We would go for walks on the Heath. I liked it better than living in the centre of town.
Well, I wouldn't want to say that I started it (rock 'n' roll), but I don't remember anyone else before me playing that kind of stuff.
You can create something strong in art with a few notes. It is like how Aboriginal drawings have a simplicity that is incredibly rich.
The greatest things in life - truth, creativity, imagination, love, kindness, compassion -are already inside us, and they're all free.
You have to be aware of all the latent possibilities that give a work its special character - its atmosphere, its moods, its contrasts.
Pianists call me a composer, composers call me a pianist. The classicists think me a futurist, and the futurists call me a reactionary.
I said I love you and that's forever And this I promise from the heart I could not love you any better I love you just the way you are.
Streetlife serenader never sang on stages, needs no orchestration, melody comes easy, need no vast arrangement to do their harmonizing.
An artist can be truly evaluated only after he is dead. At the very 11th hour, he might do something that will eclipse everything else.
I always wanted to try to be a teacher even before I was in the music business. I liked history, and good teachers made an impact on me.
There are many types of silence. There is a silence before the note, there is a silence at the end and there is a silence in the middle.
There are probably many people in Israel who believe that Wagner, who died in 1883, lived in Berlin in 1942 and was friends with Hitler.
I went to Mali for the first time in 2000, and I met Toumani Diabate and Ballake Sissoko - two of the greatest kora players of our time.
I keep telling people: Don't make me the poster boy for AA because I don't know a lot about sobriety, but I do know a lot about drinking.
Music means different things to different people and sometimes even different things to the same person at different moments of his life.
I'd like to do a television show that is encouraging, useful, and clean, and I'd like to go up against Entertainment Tonight and beat it.
I've had the healthy and sobering experience of constantly working with music that is invariably better than any performance of it can be.
I am no longer afraid of becoming lost, because the journey back always reveals something new, and that is ultimately good for the artist.