* 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.
I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Art forms of the past were really considered elitist. Bach did not compose for the masses, neither did Beethoven. It was always for patrons, aristocrats, and royalty. Now we have a sort of democratic version of that, which is to say that the audience is so splintered in its interests.
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.
So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.
A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it.
I don't really trust a sane person.
I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.