“ Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent ”
“ And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. ”
“ And, in the end
The love you take
is equal to the love you make. ”
“ If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die. ”
“ Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. ”
“ Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid. ”
Langston Hughes The Panther and the Lash , The Collected Poems
“ If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC ”
“ One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. ”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
“ Life, he realize, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it's in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile. ”
“ Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. ”
“ Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! ”
“ It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party. ”
“ If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week. ”
Charles Darwin , The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82
“ Why do beautiful songs make you sad?' 'Because they aren't true.' 'Never?' 'Nothing is beautiful and true. ”
“ A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. ”
“ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly, and my low spirits would brighten up. ”
“ I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped I’d fail. I said to him, ‘Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the fucking deli without hearing or seeing me. ”
“ I don't stand for black man's side, I don't stand for white man's side, I stand for God's side. ”
“ Everybody has that point in their life where you hit a crossroads and you've had a bunch of bad days and there's different ways you can deal with it and the way I dealt with it was I just turned completely to music. ”
“ A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness. ”
“ A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do. ”
“ You're like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again. ”
“ Somebody just gave me a shower radio. Thanks a lot. Do you really want music in the shower? I guess there's no better place to dance than a slick surface next to a glass door. ”
“ If you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, you can find out first hand what it's like to be me. ”
“ To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it. ”
“ Girls you've gotta know when it's time to turn the page. ”
“ To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable. ”
“ My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day.
I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day. ”