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 2005:

I'm not afraid of dying. I'm prepared for death because I don't believe in it. I think it's just getting out of one car and getting into another.

Art is the objectification of feeling, and the subjectification of nature.
  • Susanne K. Langer (1895 -?)
I gave up rock 'n' roll for the Rock of Ages. I used to be a glaring homosexual until God changed me.
  • Little Richard [Richard Wayne Penniman] (1932- )
When the moon is in the seventh house - and Jupiter aligns with Mars,
Then peace will guide the planets -- and love will steer the stars.
  • Aquarius (song from the musical "Hair" - by James Rado/Gerome Ragni/Galt MacDermot) [1969]
I'll walk where my own nature would be leading, It vexes me to choose another guide.
  • Emily Bronte (1818-1848) _Often Rebuked_ [1846]
I seem to have an awful lot of people inside me. --Dame Edith Evans (1888-1976)
  • [ I fear this could easily be misunderstood by those who don't realize that she was a famous and versatile actress.]
    (William C. Waterhouse, Penn State)
Art is the last thing I'm worried about when I write a song. I don't think it really matters. If you want to call it art, yeah, okay, you can call it what you like. As far as I'm concerned, "Art" is just short for "Arthur".
  • Keith Richards (1943- ) (In Joe Kohut's _Rock Talk_ [1994])
There is one art, no more, no less: to do all things with artlessness.
  • Piet Hein (1905 - )
The artist should be indifferent to praise and blame, since he is concerned with his work only in its relation to himself (...)
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. (...) It is not for nothing that artists have called their works the children of their brains (...)
It is something like an organic thing that develops, not of course only in their brains, but in their heart, their nerves, (...) and that at last becomes so oppressive that they must rid themselves of it.
When this happens they enjoy a sense of liberation and for one delicious moment rest in peace. But unlike human mothers, they lose interest very soon in the child that is born. (...)
  • William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) _The Summing Up_ [1938], Chapter XLIX
I was hanging out with this guy who was in a motorcycle club. (...) It was Sam Cooke singing "The Great Pretender" I looked at this white supremacist lowlife, with his hand on his heart and his eyes shut, swaying to that clear, black voice, and I thought, "I'll have some of that."
  • Chrissie Hynde (1951- ) (Leader of the band "The Pretenders," describing how her band got their name.)
Wow! As much as anybody, Sam made me want to sing. He would just say "Sing, girl." And believe me, that was enough.
  • Aretha Franklin (1942- )
Fancy being remembered around the world for the invention of a mouse!
  • Walt Disney (1901-1966)
He had every social disease. . . . He was infested, and so was his hair. He hadn't taken a bath for months. Or combed his hair. I think it was not so much rock 'n' roll, and not so much the road, as it [was] that nobody was taking care of him.
  • Gail Zappa (On her late husband, Frank Zappa. _Jabberrock_ [1997]
Physicians and anatomy students must learn to think of cadavers as wholly unrelated to the people they once were.
  • Mary Roach _The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers_ [2003] "A Head is a Terrible Thing to Waste"
... nine had always been a significant number for John. He was born on October 9 and so was his second son, Sean. His mother had lived at number 9; (...)
Brian Epstein had first heard the Beatles play on the ninth of the month, they had got their first record contract on the ninth and John had met Yoko on the ninth.
The number had cropped up in John's life in numerous other ways, so much so that he wrote three songs around it--"One After 909", "Revolution 9" and "#9 Dream."
Now he had died on the ninth--an astonishing coincidence by any reckoning.
  • Cynthia Lennon (1939- )_John_ [2005], Chapter 1
Number 9, Number 9, Number 9.
  • [obq]
Too late for love, too late for joy, Too late, too late!
You loitered on the road too long, You trifled at the gate.
  • Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) _The Prince's Progress_ [1861], Stanza 1
There's a sociopath in each of us just waiting to miss the connection between an act and its consequences.
  • Garrett, character in Glen Cook, _Red Iron Nights_
...one does not withdraw from the world because one hates it, but because one loves it so very much. It’s a paradox.
  • The Anchoress, _Late to a Tagging Meme_

 

 

 

 

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