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 July 2006:

I was never really wanted. The only reason I am a star is because of my repression. Nothing would have driven me through all that if I was "normal."

Adults would come to the house, he said, looking for little Michael and be disappointed when they saw him. It hurt him deeply, which no doubt fueled the obsession with the colorful jackets, the dark glasses, the sequined gloves, the ever-altering physical appearance.
  • Robert Hilburn _Los Angeles Times_ [July 22, 2006
I found out a lot of that shit I learned in school about writing doesn't apply.
  • Lonnie Melvin Tillis (1932- ) _Raymond Obstfeld's _Twang: [1997]
People are wrong when they say that the opera isn't what it used to be. It is what it used to be -- that's what's wrong with it.
  • Noël Coward (1899-1973) "Design for Living" [1933]
The passion for destruction is also a creative passion
  • Mikhail Bakunin
The future is still ours to make. The '80s will blossom if only people accept peace and love in their heart. It would just add to the tragedy if people turned away from the message in John's music.
  • Yoko Ono
The pressures which hit him were the pressures from going from just being another guy on the block to being the spokesman of your generation. [...] People would come up and ask him the meaning of life -- that put a young person who'd just written a song and played a bit of guitar under enormous pressure.
  • _Pink Floyd Frontman Syd Barrett Dies_ (forbes.com/feeds/ap/2006/07/14/ap2879913)
I'm just wandering, I think of things and then they go away forever.
  • Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) _The Times_ [February 5, 1997], (Describing her inability to write caused by the onset of Alzheimer's disease.)
Ninety-nine percent of the world's lovers are not with their first choice. That's what makes the jukebox play.
  • Willie Nelson
Onstage, Cream was a jazz band. We just didn't tell Eric.
  • Jack Bruce
The best songs don't get recorded, the best recordings don't get released, and the best releases don't get played.
  • Jim Dickinson (quoting Ry Cooder)
At our worst we were still better than most. At our best we could just wipe the floor with the lot of them. It was just a very good live band.
  • former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones
I would always be seeking for excuses, ever after, not to write; and I have often wondered why I began at all.
  • John P. Marquand, Wickford Point
A soprano who can gargle her way up to F sharp in alt is more to such simple souls than a whole drove of Johann Sebastian Bachs.
  • H.L. Mencken, _Opera_ Prejudices: Second Series
I had to justify in words, with ideas, all my actions--no matter how insane. Most of the time I couldn't.
  • Luis J. Rodriguez (1954- ) _Always Running_ [1993], Chapter 2
True mods were really too concerned with their clothes to want to ruin them by fighting with worthless rockers.
  • Richard Barnes
Up until the sixties, you couldn't buy clothes (in London) other than your parents clothes. [...] Before that all you had was the same clothes your dad wore. Life suddenly was colorful.
  • Ian McLagen
In the Tewa language [of the Towa] there is no word for art. There is, however, the concept for an artful life, filled with inspiration and fueled by labor and thoughtful approach.
  • Nora Naranjo-Morse _Mud Woman -- Poems from the Clay_ [1992]
Some nights I still sleep on the beach. Remembering when stars were in reach.
  • The Who, (lyrics _Bell Boy_)
Where self-interest is suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control that dries up the wellspring of initiative and creativity.
  • Pope John Paul II
Licker talks mighty loud w'en it git loose fum de jug.
  • Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908), Uncle Remus: _Plantation Proverbs_
I didn't realize people took songs so seriously, and it made me wonder whether I ought to consider the consequences [of what I write].
  • Jim Morrison (1943-1971) _Jabberrock_ [1997]
I was tired of writing a lot of serious stuff that didn't pay the bills. I wanted to create a best-seller.
  • Mario Puzo (1920-1999) (On the writing of _The Godfather_; _Daily Telegraph_ [October 19, 1996])
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know
  • Ernest Hemingway
[...] James Penny was a Liverpool-based slave-ship captain, slave trader and an outspoken anti- abolitionist. [...] Earlier this month, the Liverpool City Council considered a proposal under which streets named after slave traders would be renamed [...] But when the council realized that Penny Lane was among the streets that would have to be renamed, it hesitated. Penny Lane is one of the most significant tourist sites in Liverpool; thousands of people come each year to visit the street made famous in the 1967 Beatles song. In the end, the council decided to leave the name unchanged.
  • Swati Pandey _Los Angeles Times_ [July 16, 2006],

 

 

 

 

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