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 December 2004:

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
  • Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)
If it wasn't for rap there would be no poetry in America. I think we went directly from Walt Whitman to Ice-T.
  • Frank Zappa (1940-1993)
So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton's house. The relief of not having to go and see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote "Here Comes the Sun.
  • George Harrison (1943-2001)
He did not see any reason why the devil should have all the good tunes.
  • Sir Rowland Hill (1795 ? 1879)
Welcome back, my friend, To the show that never ends. Come inside, come inside!
  • Emerson Lake & Palmer, (Karn Evil 9), _Brain Salad Surgery_, 1973
I feel ghostly unreal until I become somebody else again on the screen
  • Peter Sellers
Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpoints to hack post-horses.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
(Purple Haze) came next [during a concert at the 1967 Montery Pop Festival], and once again Hendrix invoked his sense of humor by pointing to [Noel] Redding and singing "Excuse me, while I kiss this guy."
  • John McDermott (1947- ) _Hendrix: Setting The Record Straight_ [1992]
Determined to claim the son he had never seen, Al traveled to Berkeley, retrieved Johnny and brought him home to Seattle. A short while later, Al Hendrix began matters anew, and on September 11, 1946, renamed his son James Marshall Hendrix.
  • John McDermott (1947- ) _Hendrix: Setting The Record Straight_ [1992]
On this day, a gust of wind had lifted the skirt of a pretty folk singer who had completed her set earlier and was now watching Hendrix from the wings of the stage. The opportunity was too good to let pass and Hendrix wryly dedicated "Foxey Lady" to "the girl back there with the yellow underwear." "Yeah, you" confirmed Hendrix, pointing out a young Stevie Nicks red with embarrassment.
  • John McDermott (1947- ) _Hendrix: Setting The Record Straight_ [1992]
Tommy Dorsey was the last of the band leaders . . . He was always ahead of his time. If he got drunk he was difficult, but then who the hell isn't difficult if you get drunk?
  • Dick Haymes (In Marshall Bowden's _Quotable Jazz_ [2002]
I like a good lyric that's not jumping into bed in the next line. I like a lyric that means something, one that can be around 200 years from today.
  • Etta Jones (1928-2001)
Every great sculpture, painting, poem, story, musical composition, attempts to solve problems. They may be problems deeply buried, unknown consciously even to their container, coming forth as heavenly release into creation.
  • Arthur Burks in _Waken the Dreamers_, p. 155
It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning.
  • Salvador Dali
Art is a revolt against fate.
  • Andre Malraux (1901-1976) _Les Voix du Silence_ [1951], Part IV, Chapter 7
I've looked at life from both sides now From win and lose, and still somehow It's life's illusions I recall I really don't know life at all.
  • Joni Mitchell (1943- ) _Both Sides, Now_ [1969]
I cannot convince myself that a painting is good unless it is popular. If the public dislikes one of my [Saturday Evening] Post covers, I can't help disliking it myself.
  • Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) _New York Times_ [September 28, 1986]
The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?
  • Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Black is the queen of colors.
  • Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma of conformity.
  • Thomas J. Watson
Self-plagiarism is style.
  • Alfred Hitchcock
In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom.
  • J.G. Ballard (1930- )
Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.
  • Daniel Barenboim (1942- ) _The Paris International Herald Tribune_ [January 20, 1989
Before I put a brush to canvas, I question, "Is this mine? . . . Is it influenced by some idea which I have acquired from some man?" . . . . I am trying with all my skill to do a painting that is all of women, as well as all of me.
  • Georgia O'Keefe (1887-1986) _New York World_ [March 16, 1930]
Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing. Taste is the enemy of creativity.
  • Pablo Picasso, (Strength to Love, 1963)
I saw the show under unfortunate circumstances: the curtain was up.
  • George S. Kaufman (1889 -1961)
Dada is impossible in New York. New York _is_ Dada.
  • Man Ray
A professional is a person who can do his best at a time when he doesn't particularly feel like it.
  • Alistair Cooke (1908 -2004)
Every morning that bitch would wake me up at nine o'clock to teach me to play like Coleman Hawkins.
  • Lester Young (1909-1959)

 

 

 

 

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