Quotes by Composers - Page 5

New York is a place where the rich walk, the poor drive Cadillac's, and the beggars die of malnutrition with thousands of dollars hidden in their mattresses.
Duke Ellington
Give my regards to Broadway,Remember me to Herald Square,Tell all the gang at 42nd Street,That I will soon be there;Whisper of how I'm yearningTo mingle with the old time throng,Give my regards to old Broadway,And say that I'll be there e'er long.
George M. Cohan
You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.
Tom Waits
Given the chance, i'll die like a baby, on some faraway beach, when the season's over.
Brian Eno
It won't give up, it wants me deadGoddamn this noise inside my head
Trent Reznor
Why do you write like you're running out of time?
Lin-Manuel Miranda
[ELIZA]You and your words flooded my senses, your sentences left me defenseless. You built me palaces out of paragraphs, you built cathedrals.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
When the weather's rough and it's whiskey in the rain it's best to wrap your savior up in cellophane.
Tom Waits
I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner?
Frank Zappa
Though it's fearful, Though it's deep, though it's dark And though you may lose the path, Though you may encounter wolves, You can't just act, You have to listen. you can't just act, You have to think. Though it's dark, There are always wolves, There are always spells, There are always beans, Or a giant dwells there. So into the woods you go again, You have to every now and then. Into the woods, no telling when, Be ready for the journey. Into the woods, but not too fast or what you wish, you lose at last. Into the woods, but mind the past. Into the woods, but mind the future. Into the woods, but not to stray, Or tempt the wolf, or steal from the giant-- The way is dark, The light is dim, But now there's you, me, her, and him. The chances look small, The choices look grim, But everything you learn there Will help when you return there. The light is getting dimmer.. I think I see a glimmer-- Into the woods--you have to grope, But that's the way you learn to cope. Into the woods to find there's hope Of getting through the journey. Into the woods, each time you go, There's more to learn of what you know. Into the woods, but not too slow-- Into the woods, it's nearing midnight-- Into the woods to mind the wolf, To heed the witch, to honor the giant, To mind, to heed, to find, to think, to teach, to join, to go to the Festival! Into the woods, Into the woods, Into the woods, Then out of the woods-- And happy ever after!
Stephen Sondheim
Alright! You sir, you sir, how about a shave?Come and visit your good friend Sweeney.You sir, too sir? Welcome to the grave.I will have vengenance.I will have salvation.Who sir, you sir?No ones in the chair, Come on! Come on!Sweeney's. waiting. I want you bleeders.You sir! Anybody!Gentlemen now don't be shy!Not one man, no, nor ten men.Nor a hundred can assuage me.I will have you!And I will get him back even as he gloatsIn the meantime I'll practice on less honorable throats.And my Lucy lies in ashesAnd I'll never see my girl again.But the work waits!I'm alive at last!And I'm full of joy!
Stephen Sondheim
Beryl: Beryl is a warm gemstone which develops, between the third hour and midday, from the foam of water when the sun burns it severely. Its power is thus more from air and water than from fire, but nevertheless it has some of the properties of fire. And if a man has drunk or eaten poison, then he should place a little beryl in spring water and drink it at once. Continue for five days drinking it once a day while fasting, and the poison will foam up through vomiting, or it will pass out of him through the rear.
Hildegard of Bingen
Confronting a liar makes a better liar.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
As she put it, she knew of nothing so ravishing as having a child whom she could whip whenever she was in a bad mood.("The Queen Fantasque")
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.
Tom Waits
You've sinned, I suppose, but your punishment has been out of all proportion. They have turned you into something other than a human being. You have no power of choice any longer. You are committed to socially acceptable acts, a little machine capable only of good.
Anthony Burgess
The heresy of an age of reason. I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.
Anthony Burgess
Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.
Anthony Burgess
There are two sides to every question: my side and the wrong side.
Oscar Levant
The only true immortality lies in one's chi
Johannes Brahms
Entirely taken up by the present, I could remember nothing; I had no distinct notion of myself as a person, nor had I the least idea of what had just happened to me. I did not know who I was, nor where I was; I felt neither pain, fear, nor anxiety. I watched my blood flowing as I might have watched a stream, without even thinking that the blood had anything to do with me. I felt throughout my whole being such a wonderful calm, that whenever I recall this feeling I can find nothing to compare with it in all the pleasures that stir our lives.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
When people speak, listen carefully and pay particular attention to what they are not saying.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
I’m famous. Ain’t that a bitch?
Thelonious Monk
Contrary to general belief, an artist is never ahead of his [sic!] time but most people are far behind theirs.
Edgard Varèse
We are a race of artists. What are we doing about it?
Shirley Graham Du Bois
We hold this myth to be potentialNot self-evident but equationalAnother DimensionOf another kind of Living Life
Sun Ra
The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced.
Frank Zappa
When I was young” … “Before I was twenty, I mean, I used to think that life was a thing that kept gaining impetus, it would get richer and deeper each year. You kept learning more, getting wiser, having more insight, going further into the truth” – she hesitated.Port laughed abruptly. – “And now you know it’s not like that. Right? It’s more like smoking a cigarette. The first few puffs it tasted wonderful, and you don’t even think of its ever being used up. Then you begin taking it for granted. Suddenly you realize it’s nearly burned down to the end. And then’s when you’re conscious of the bitter taste.
Paul Bowles
I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Simplicity is the key to beauty. Clarity is the key to perfection.
David Nevue
Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
My wife's the reason anything gets done, she nudges me towards promise by degrees. She is a perfect symphony of one our son is her most beautiful reprise. We chase the melodies that seem to find us until they're finished songs and start to play. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised--not one day. This show is proof that history remembers. We live in times when hate and fear seem stronger. We rise and fall and light from dying embers--remembrances that hope and love last longer. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. I sing Vanessa's symphony. Eliza tells her story. Now, fill the world with music, love, and pride.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
May Allah bless you." Or had she said: "May Allah burn you?" He was not sure which: the two Arabic words sounded so much alike.
Paul Bowles
Patriotism is too deep a feeling to depict in the posing for a photograph.
Charlie Chaplin
Jazz is democracy in music.
Wynton Marsalis
I appreciated art, long before I could produce it.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
It is impossible to be truly artistic without the risk of offending someone somewhere.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
Contentment comes from wanting what we need, not needing what we want.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
So we got hold of him and cracked him with a few good horrorshow tolchocks, but he still went on singing.
Anthony Burgess
Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Hamlet' dwarfs 'Hamilton' - it dwarfs pretty much everything - but there's a revealing similarity between them. Shakespeare's longest play leaves its audience in the dark about some basic and seemingly crucial facts. It's not as if the Bard forgot, in the course of all those words, to tell us whether Hamlet was crazy or only pretending: He wanted us to wonder. He forces us to work on a puzzle that has no definite answer. And this mysteriousness is one reason why we find the play irresistible. 'Hamilton' is riddled with question marks. The first act begins with a question, and so does the second. The entire relationship between Hamilton and Burr is based on a mutual and explicit lack of comprehension: 'I will never understand you,' says Hamilton, and Burr wonders, 'What it is like in his shoes?' Again and again, Lin distinguishes characters by what they wish they knew. 'What'd I miss?' asks Jefferson in the song that introduces him. 'Would that be enough?' asks Eliza in the song that defines her. 'Why do you write like you're running out of time?' asks everybody in a song that marvels at Hamilton's drive, and all but declares that there's no way to explain it. 'Hamilton', like 'Hamlet', gives an audience the chance to watch a bunch of conspicuously intelligent and well-spoken characters fill the stage with 'words, words, words,' only to discover, again and again, the limits to what they can comprehend.
Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
. . . when a woman has a husbandAnd you've got none,Why should she take advice from you?Even if you can quote Balzac and ShakespeareAnd all them other highfalutin' Greeks.
Meredith Willson
If you do not want to write, at least spit on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and send it to me. You are not taking any notice of me at all. God forgive you – all I wanted was a few words from you.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
Frank Zappa
The world would not be in such a snarl, had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl.
Irving Berlin
Whoever tells a lie is not pure of heart, and such a person can not cook a clean soup.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Whosoever possesses a camera should never know boredom.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
We cannot teach children the danger of lying to men without feeling as men, the greater danger of lying to children.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Ah,' thought the king sadly, shrugging his shoulders, "I see clearly that if one has a crazy wife, one cannot avoid being a fool.'("Queen Fantasque")
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The more you care, the more you fear.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
I've allowed myself to lead this little life, when inside me there was so much more.
Willy Russell
The secret of successfully giving yourself away lies not so much in calculated actions as in cultivating friendly, warm-hearted impulses. You have to train yourself to obey giving impulses on the instant -- before they get a chance to cool. When you give impulsively, something happens inside of you that makes you glow, sometimes for hours.
David Dunn
Only the fearless made proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road.
Toby Fox
Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete.
Tom Waits
Poor, ill-advised Roderich! What evil power did you conjure up to poison in its first youth the race you thought to have planted for eternity?
E.T.A. Hoffmann
Wedged as we are between two eternities of idleness, there is no excuse for being idle now.
Anthony Burgess
Our sins live with us for eternity, and that is perhaps the most frightening thing of all. - Sims
Simon Holt
I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying.
Charlie Chaplin
That our selves and all men are apt and prone to differ it is no new Thing in all former Ages in all parts of this World in these parts and in our deare native Countrey and mournfull state of England.That either part or partie is most right in his owne eye his Cause Right his Cariage Right, his Argumts Right his Answeres Right is as wofully and constantly true as the former. And experience tells us that when the God of peace hath taken peace from the Earth one sparke of Action word or Cariage is too too powrefull to kindle such a fire as burns up Families Townes Cities Armies, Navies Nations and Kingdomes.[Letter of Roger Williams to Town of Providence, August 31, 1648]
Roger Williams
Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.
Frank Zappa