Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.
I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.
I had been interested in Indian music and I actually started studying Tableaus before I met him.
If I can introduce someone to something new, as is constantly happening to me, then I am elated.
Computers are only capable of a certain kind of randomness because computers are finite devices.
Music is my life and my life is music. Anyone who does not understand this is not worthy of God.
...I have great hopes for the possibility of a dynamic universalism that respects all our people.
In the Negro melodies of America I find all that is needed for a great and noble school of music.
Tension, especially with regard to horror, is a very difficult thing to sustain in the big sense.
Not that I have anything against music now, but I just hated being an anything. I don't know why.
The century of aeroplanes deserves its own music. As there are no precedents, I must create anew.
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it.
A man is culpable in the eyes of society when he escapes from the jurisdiction of its mediocrity.
I made my way on to a grey list, a black list even. That's something I'm very proud of, actually.
My more risky or avant garde music is not that well known to a wider audience, but I wish it was.
Real men are sadly lacking in this world, for when they are put to the test they prove worthless.
I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi.
It pleased the Almighty, to whose great will Holy Will I submit myself with Christian submission.
Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully
I had to get out of America to get a professional life going where I could actually make a living
One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.
A banjo will get you through times of no money, but money won't get you through times of no banjo
But since the middle of the century in particular, the music has become very irregular in rhythm.
We all learn from each other, and I never really hung out with guys in that way, so I missed out.
We've had characters like Trump in American politics forever, characters who trade on xenophobia.
I was born in Paris, and I haven't moved, except until now - I live in the suburbs and I hate it.
Recommend to your children to be virtuous, only the virtue can bring us happiness, not the money.
When you make a piece, one of the interesting things is hearing what other people think about it.
So I don't really have a clear plan, in terms of music, as to where I want to head in the future.
The most tremendous genius raised Mozart above all masters, in all centuries and in all the arts.
Deciding what is to be sung and what is not to be sung is really what writing a musical is about.
If people could see into my heart, I should almost feel ashamed - all there is cold, cold as ice.
Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
When I decided to go to a country that subsidized music, I went to the Soviet Union for two years.
My 10th Sonata is a sonata of insects. Insects are born from the sun... they are the sun's kisses.
People who have gone, are still here, in us. Places we came from, are carried to the places we go.
What makes a specific quality or quantity of innovation retain its intense newness over the years?
I'm just trying to survive and stay relevant! That's all anyone in the music business can ask for.
Whether it's string writing or whatever, I try to write for what each instrumentalist can do best.
We may play in a contemporary rock vein, use standard bebop themes, and many other things besides.
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it.
The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?
The terror of performing never goes away. Instead, you get very, very comfortable being terrified.
As an improviser I'm now pretty comfortable with trios, so I'm thinking of working up to quartets.
I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world.
The influence of a beautiful, helpful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town.
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully.
I had to get out of America to get a professional life going where I could actually make a living.