Quotes by Composers

I love rain because tears can not be seen in rain.
Charlie Chaplin
No regrets. There is no time for that. Regret is boring.
A.R. Rahman
I love Paris in the summer, when it sizzles.
Cole Porter
However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb? Mother do you think they'll like this song? Mother do you think they'll try to break my balls?Mother should I build the wall?Mother should I run for president?Mother should I trust the government?Mother will they put me in the firing line?Mother am I really dying?Hush now baby, baby, dont you cry.Mother's gonna make all your nightmares come true.Mother's gonna put all her fears into you.Mother's gonna keep you right here under her wing.She wont let you fly, but she might let you sing.Mama will keep baby cozy and warm.Ooooh baby ooooh baby oooooh baby,Of course mama'll help to build the wall.Mother do you think she's good enough -- to me?Mother do you think she's dangerous -- to me?Mother will she tear your little boy apart?Mother will she break my heart?Hush now baby, baby dont you cry.Mama's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you.Mama wont let anyone dirty get through.Mama's gonna wait up until you get in.Mama will always find out where you've been.Mama's gonna keep baby healthy and clean.Ooooh baby oooh baby oooh baby,You'll always be baby to me.Mother, did it need to be so high?
Roger Waters
My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh.But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain.
Charlie Chaplin
Work is more fun than fun.
Noël Coward
The downtrodden who are the great creators of slang hurl pithiness and colour at poverty and oppression.
Anthony Burgess
The number of people who will not go to a show they do not want to see is unlimited.
Oscar Hammerstein
In every mess I find a friend In every port a wife.
Charles Dibdin
To arms! to arms! ye brave! The avenging sword unsheathe March on! march on! all hearts resolved On victory or death!
Rouget de Lisle
A person can grow only as much as his horizon allows.
John Powell
Recommend to your children virtue that alone can make them happy not gold.
Beethoven
I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing other patients.
Oscar Levant
Life is denied by lack of attention whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.
Nadia Boulanger
Time is a great teacher but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
Hector Berlioz
I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve.
Igor Stravinsky
Of course he seems to have quite a mind of his own and that is probably where he is weakest.
Arnold Schoenberg
If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted I beg his pardon.
Johannes Brahms
Good heavens television is something you appear on you don't watch.
Noël Coward
The luck of having talent is not enough one must also have a talent for luck.
Hector Berlioz
No one really understands the grief or joy of another.
Franz Schubert
The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in business. You've got to keep working that talent.
Irving Berlin
The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success.
Irving Berlin
John Brown's body lies a mould'ring in the grave His soul goes marching on.
Thomas Brigham Bishop
My advice about acting? Speak clearly don't bump into people and if you must have motivation think of your pay packet on Friday.
Noël Coward
I searched through rebellion drugs diet mysticism religion intellectual-ism and much more only to find that truth is basically simple and feels good clear and right.
Chick Corea
Making the simple complicated is commonplace making the complicated simple awesomely simple that's creativity.
Charles Mingus
It is not the eyes of others that I am wary of but my own.
Noël Coward
Security is a false god begin making sacrifices to it and you are lost.
Paul Bowles
The perfect computer has been developed. You just feed in your problems and they never come out again.
Al Goodman
A dreamer-you know-it's a mind that looks over the edges of things.
Mary O'Hara
Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape a fire is guilty of suicide?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
A man like Verdi must write like Verdi.
Giuseppe Verdi
I searched through rebellion drugs diets mysticism religions intellectu-alism and much more only to begin to find ... that truth is basically simple-and feels good clean and right.
Chick Corea
They say you should not suffer through the past. You should be able to wear it like a loose garment take it off and let it drop.
Eva Jessye
It is one thing to be gifted and quite another thing to be worthy of one's own gift.
Nadia Boulanger
Epigram: a wisecrack that has played Carnegie Hall.
Oscar Levant
Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.
Oscar Levant
He who is the most slow in making a promise is the most faithful in the performance of it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I'm a concert pianist. That's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment.
Oscar Levant
One must not hold one's self so divine as to be unwilling occasionally to make improvements in one's creations.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Perfection is no more a requisite to art than to heroes.
Ned Rorem
Den I wish I was in Dixie Hooray! Hooray! In Dixie Land I'll take my stand To lib and die in Dixie.
Daniel D. Emmett
It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
John Cage
All that time is lost which might be better employed.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
We are involved in a life that passes understanding: our highest business is our daily life.
John Cage
Slow motion gets you there faster.
Hoagy Carmichael
I am an arrogant and impatient listener but in the case of a few composers a very few when I hear a work I do not like I am convinced that it is my own fault. Verdi is one of those composers.
Benjamin Britten
If a literary man puts together two words about music one of them will be wrong.
Aaron Copland
Music is given to us specifically to make order of things to move from an anarchic individualistic state to a regulated perfectly concious one which alone insures vitality and durability.
Igor Stravinsky
Music should strike fire from the heart of man and bring tears from the eyes of woman.
Beethoven
How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
Gioacchino Rossini
Music is your own experience your thoughts your wisdom. If you don't live it it won't come out of your horn.
Charlie Parker
The function of pop music is to be consumed.
Pierre Boulez
I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the varieties of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.
Igor Stravinsky
The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah that is where the art resides!
Artur Schnabel
I write as a sow piddles.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
Igor Stravinsky
Throughout my career nervousness and stage-fright have never left me before playing. And each of the thousands of concerts I have played at I feel as bad as I did the very first time.
Pablo Casals