Ned Rorem Quotes

As a lifelong pacifist, Quaker, and a gay man, I despair that gays and lesbians are expending energy trying to get into the military when they should be using that same energy getting rid of the military completely.

Artists, by definition innocent, don't steal. But they do borrow without giving back.

Art means to dare - and to have been right.

If a composer could state in words what being a composer means, he would no longer need to be a composer.

The beautiful are shyer than the ugly, for they move in a world that does not ask for beauty.

The hardest of all the arts to speak of is music, because music has no meaning to speak of.

There are no fascinating people, only their works are fascinating.

Composition is notation of distortion of what composers think they've heard before. Masterpieces are marvelous misquotations.

In music the present is extended.

Humor is the ability to see three sides to one coin.

Quarrels in France strengthen a love affair, in America they end it.

The Great don't innovate, they fertilize seeds planted by lackeys, they leave to others the inhaling of the flowers whose roots they've manured. A deceptive memory may be the key to their originality.

Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.

Intelligence is silence, truth is being invisible. But what a racket I make in declaring this.

So far as musical pedagogy is concerned -
And by extension of musical creation -
Nadia Boulanger is the most influential person who ever lived

If asked to list my ten favorite American fiction writers, Gail Godwin would be among them. In this, her latest ... she evokes in a short book the long married life of two artists. Evenings at Five is a strong tale of love-after-death.

We endow our poor lovers with godly traits, and then destroy them for being mortal.

Don't be too dismissive of children. While it's true that few children are artists, all artists are children.

Anyone can be gay - it's no accomplishment - but only I can be me.

The same piece of music alters at each hearing. But oh, the need to repeat and repeat and repeat unchanged the sexual experience.

To see itself through, music must have idea or magic ... Music with neither dies young though rich.

Greatness is not the effect of which inspiration is the cause. We are all inspired, but we are all not great.

If music could be translated into human speech, it would no longer need to exist.

All men are forced into one of two categories: those with eleven fingers and those without.

Classic means standard as opposed to Romantic: form before meaning as opposed to meaning before form. It grows from inside out, while Romantic grows from outside in.

I don't go to concerts much. I've heard everything. When I do go to movies, I walk out half the time. As for literature, I've read everything.

It's not evil that's ruining the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly.

Perfection is no more a requisite to art than to heroes. Frigidaires are perfect. Beauty limps. My frigidaire has had to be replaced.