Music Quotes

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.

I did. (to a fan who said she’d give her life to be able to play piano like that)

Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.

The conductor’s task is really not unlike that of a prostitute; it consists of performing to make other people happy, no matter how you feel yourself – and then passing the hat.

I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet.

Beethoven’s 9th: Nobody will ever write anything better than this symphony.

The fantasies of music are governed by art, mine by chance.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.

In music the ear obeys only nature. It takes account of neither measure nor range. Instinct alone leads it.

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.