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 January 2006:

Why did you have to go and make things so complicated?

The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all.
  • Pablo Casals (1876-1973)
 Mozart's music is particularly difficult to perform. His admirable clarity exacts absolute cleanness: the slightest mistake in it stands out like black on white.
  • Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924).
 The purpose of having an open mind is the same as having an open mouth, the object being eventually to close it on something solid.
  • Steve Allen (1927-2000 ) his book _The Answer Man_ [1959]
 I am alive and well, but if I were dead I would be the last to know.
  • Paul McCartney
 Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., (1809-1894) _The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_, 1858
 Elvis cut more records, toured and played club dates for $10 or $15 a night. Later he would explain, [I'm not kidding myself. My voice is ordinary. If I stand still while I'm singing, I might as well go back to driving a truck.]
  • Lawrence Elliott _Reader's Digest_ [August 1993], _Where Elvis Lives_
 Elvis had done his two-year hitch, uncomplainingly, as an ordinary GI, even rising to the responsibility of an NCO.
  • Colin Powell (1937- ) _My American Journey_ [1995], _A Soldier's Life For Me_
If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.
  • Sam Phillips (1923-2003) (The man who discovered Elvis Presley.
Einstein was once traveling from Princeton on a train when the conductor came down the aisle. (...) The conductor rushed back and said, "Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein, don't worry, I know who you are. No problem. You don't need a ticket. I'm sure you bought one." Einstein looked at him and said, "Young man, I too, know who I am. What I don't know is where I'm going.'"
  • (from the Graham J Weeks collection)
There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment.
  • Paul Theroux, "The Rock Star's Burden", _The New York > Times_, December 15, 2005
 Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.
  • The Bible, Hebrews 13:2 NIV
 Assent - and you are sane - , demur - you're straightway dangerous -,and handled with a Chain.
  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), Much Madness is Divinest Sense [1862]
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, A poet, a pawn and a king;
I've been up and down and over and out, And I know one thing;
Each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race.
  • Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) _That's Life_ [1966] (song) (Music and lyrics by Kelly Gordon and Dean Kay)
 Comedy is all about superfluous energy, those impulses that have nowhere else to go but into enjoyable mischief.
  • Michael Blakemore, _Arguments with England: A Memoir_
'Cos I ain't askin' nobody for nothin', If I can't get it on my own. If you don't like the way I'm livin', You just leave this long-haired country boy alone.
  • Long-Haired Country Boy, Charlie Daniels Band

 

 

 

 

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