Quotes by Pianists

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
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
If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted I beg his pardon.
Johannes Brahms
Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.
Artur Rubinstein
Freedom means choosing your burden.
Hephzibah Menuhin
Epigram: a wisecrack that has played Carnegie Hall.
Oscar Levant
Flint must be an extremely wealthy town I see that each of you bought two or three seats.
Victor Borge
Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.
Oscar Levant
I'm a concert pianist. That's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment.
Oscar Levant
Fear breeds fear.
Byron Janis
I have found that if you love life life will love you back.
Arthur Rubinstein
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
I am tired before the concert not afterward.
Artur Rubinstein
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
Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
Igor Stravinsky
Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra not choreography to the audience.
George Szell
The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always graver than its performance - whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being played.
Andre Previn
The sonatas of Mozart are unique they are too easy for children and too difficult for artists.
Artur Schnabel
Epigram: a wisecrack that has played Carnegie Hall.
Oscar Levant
Flint must be an extremely wealthy town I see that each of you bought two or three seats.
Victor Borge
Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.
Oscar Levant
I'm a concert pianist. That's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment.
Oscar Levant
Fear breeds fear.
Byron Janis
I have found that if you love life life will love you back.
Arthur Rubinstein
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
I am tired before the concert not afterward.
Artur Rubinstein
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
Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
Igor Stravinsky
Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra not choreography to the audience.
George Szell
The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always graver than its performance - whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being played.
Andre Previn
The sonatas of Mozart are unique they are too easy for children and too difficult for artists.
Artur Schnabel
When I was young I used to have successes with women because I was young. Now I have successes with women because I am old. Middle age was the hardest part.
Artur Rubinstein
Life holds so much so much to be happy about always. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can be felt only if you don't set any conditions.
Artur Rubinstein
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
Victor Borge
Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.
Arthur Rubinstein
There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
Before I was a genius I was a drudge.
Ignace Jan Paderewski
To be alive to be able to see to walk ... it's all a miracle. I have adapted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle.
Arthur Rubinstein
Conformism is so hot on the heels of the mass-produced avant-garde that the 'ins' and the 'outs' change places with the speed of mach 3.
Igor Stravinsky
I envy people who drink - at least they know what to blame everything on.
Oscar Levant
I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.
Max Reger
Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.
Frédéric Chopin
Childhood - a period of waiting for the moment when I could send everyone and everything connected with it to hell.
Igor Stravinsky
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
Duke Ellington
Fear breeds fear.
Byron Janis
Old age is a time of humiliations the most disagreeable of which for me is that I cannot work long at sustained high pressure with no leaks in concentration.
Igor Stravinsky
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
Duke Ellington
Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.
Fridiric Chopin
I accept life unconditionally. ... Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.
Arthur Rubinstein
To come up with one great sentence, one needs to serve a life sentence.
Lera Auerbach
Death defines life. I'd rather stay undefined.
Lera Auerbach
Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light.
Regina Spektor
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
I believe in the understanding of difficult situations, difficult music, or any kind of difficulties, through familiarity. Familiarity, in this case, does not breed contempt, but breeds understanding.
Daniel Barenboim
This is how it works: you're young until you're not. You love until you don't, you try until you can't, you laugh until you cry, you cry until you laugh. And everyone must breathe until their dying breath. This is how it works: you peer inside yourself, you take the things you like and try to love the things you don't. And then you take that love you make and stick it into someone else's heart pumping someone else's blood.
Regina Spektor