Music, Art and Madness Quotations and Proverbs

* some views expressed in these quotations not neccesarily endorsed by the author of this file.
* for entertainment only - history is not an exact science - dates and quotes not guaranteed for accuracy.

Added for May 2004:

A painter paints pictures on canvas but musicians paint their pictures on silence.

People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.
  • Billie Holiday [Eleanor Fagan] (1915-1959)
Did I really rehearse and record this junk?
  • Arturo Toscanini, on listening to Shostakovich's "Leningrad" symphony #7
We all know that art is not truth. Art is the lie that makes us realize truth.
  • Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best!
  • Frank Zappa, Joe's Garage
...all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill in dancing.
  • Moliere, 1673
Like a madman, beyond all limits, go wherever you please; And live like a lion, completely free of fear.
  • A Dzogchen Tantra
If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
  • Dolly Parton
There may be trouble ahead - But while there's moonlight, and music, and love, and romance -Let's face the music and dance.
  • Irving Berlin
On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people; and then I go home alone.
  • Janis Joplin
Abstract art? A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
  • Al Capp
...and from a loudspeaker they suddenly heard a wild impossible mistake in jazz that could only have been heard inside their own imaginary head, and that is a new art. Bop.
  • Jack Kerouac
Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness.
  • George Jean Nathan
It's kinda like a toothpaste commercial, but there's no product.
  • Neil Young, on music videos by Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys
Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.
  • Pablo Casals (1876-1973)
Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.
  • Georges Braque
You load sixteen tons and what do you get - Another day older and deeper in debt.
  • Tennessee Ernie Ford
I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees.
  • Leonard Bernstein
Don't sit and wait - For the world on a plate - (It's not a stroke of luck or chance) - Just draw a bead on that sucker, and drive!
  • Todd Rundgren, ("Drive")
I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
The leaves that are green turn to brown. And they wither with the wind. And they crumble in your hand.
  • Paul Simon, (Sounds Of Silence 1965)
As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead.
  • George Harrison (1943-2001)
When I went backstage to see George after the concert, he was chanting, burning incense and seemed to be praying. I didn't want to disturb him, so I waved, he waved and I went home. That was George the quiet one.
  • Sid Bernstein (1918- )
Without deviation, progress is not possible.
  • Frank Zappa
What's wrong with sentimental? Sentimental means you *love*, you care, you like stuff. The thing is, we're frightened to be sentimental.
  • Paul McCartney
I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet.
  • Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840)
You know what's the loudest noise in the world? The loudest noise in the world is silence.
  • Thelonious Monk (1917-1982)
If didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens.
  • Grandma Moses [Anna Mary Robertson] (1860-1961)

 

 

 

 

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