Great Musician Quotes

Well, my paper has asked me to do a series: Lives of the Great Musicians, reading time 2 minutes. ~ Dodie Smith

My dad wasn't the biggest role model, but he was a great musician and I loved him very much. He was a character. ~ Randy Houser

I was always funny, but I wasn't a great musician, and I wanted to be a musician way more than I wanted to be a comic. I just didn't think comedians were cool when I was a kid. ~ Greg Behrendt

All my momma's people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano. ~ Dolly Parton

Pablo Casals is a great musician in all he does: a cellist without equal, and extraordinary conductor and composer with something to say. I have been profoundly impressed by all I have heard of his work, but he is a musician of this stature because he is also a great man. ~ Albert Schweitzer

I'm such a copycat."I want to try and do this like the Donovan song 'Changes'," or "I want to do this bit from Van Morrison." I don't know how else to illustrate something, because I'm not a super-great musician. In that way, I'm more like the producer. ~ Eleanor Friedberger

You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them. ~ Etta James

Dude, if you want to be a great musician, you have to try heroin. You'll see. It's like being back in the womb. ~ Dave Mustaine

To me, seeing a really great comedian is a bit like watching a musician or a poet. ~ Dick Gregory

Jonny Lang has the power to move the music into the next millennium by reaching the ears of a new generation. The great musicians have the power to break all of the 'isms'-race, age, sex, et cetera. Jonny Lang is one of those musicians. ~ Luther Allison

When I worked with General Electric, again this was soon after the Second World War, you know, I was keeping up with new developments and they showed me a milling machine and this thing worked by punch cards - that's where computers were at that time, and everybody was sort of sheepish about how well this thing worked because in those days machinists were treated as though they were great musicians because they were virtuosos on these machines. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Yeah, we try to get the best musicians possible, and Justin [Robinson] is a great musician, man, a great player. You must have been surprised to see him out there, then. ~ Common

Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

Be good to people. Be good to every single person you come into contact with. My best friends are great musicians. But more than that, they're great people. ~ Taylor Swift

He wasn't a great father. He was a great musician. That's always been a touchy one, and it will be until I can find the answer, but I don't know if there is one. ~ Julian Lennon

It's just a joy to be able to work with a lot of different musicians. When you play with great musicians, whether they're schooled or self-taught, they keep you on your toes. ~ Cass McCombs

A lot of young musicians get the money at the wrong time. They get it for something they don't feel great about, and it'll make you feel so bad it'll destroy you and kill you. ~ Iggy Pop

The soul of the great musician can only be expressed in music. ~ Margaret Fuller

The world has lost a great musician who will always be an inspiration to me and those at OBEY GIANT. ~ Shepard Fairey

I feel very honored to be playing with Bill Pierce. He's such a great musician. ~ Kevin Eubanks

The way we got Phil Collins for 'Tarzan' was that we heard around the studio that he was looking for a Disney project, and we got him. It seemed like a perfect match. Phil is a great musician. ~ Kevin Lima

I've been collaborating with Ira Schickman on some songs, and there will be many other, great musicians involved. ~ Chaka Khan

Surrounding myself with people I enjoy being with made the sessions effortless. Everyone came prepared and ready to play. All were great musicians and they came to the studio to give everything they had. ~ Stanley Clarke

When I hear a great musician, I can feel his life inside the music. ~ John McLaughlin

I think that what trips up a lot of great musicians is that they become involved with too many things that aren't where their strengths lie. ~ Will Oldham

Watch MTV and you can see what the music scene is like in England. The Spice Girls? Not a lot of creativity in the commercial area. There are still great musicians in England, but not a lot being heard that much. ~ Jimmy Carl Black

I know a lot of great musicians that don't know they're even great, because mangers try and make them feel belittled like they're not worth a crap. ~ Jim "Dandy" Mangrum

Formerly, in my attempts to isolate this talent, I deducted, so to speak, from what I heard, the part itself, a part, the common property of all the actresses who appeared as Phèdre, which I myself had studied beforehand so that I might be capable of subtracting it, of gleaming as a residuum Mme Berma's talent alone. But this talent which I sought to discover outside the part itself was indissolubly one with it. So with a great musician (it appears that this was the case with Vinteuil when he played the piano), his playing is that of so fine a pianist that one is no longer aware that the performer is a pianist at all, because his playing has become so transparent, so imbued with what he is interpreting, that one no longer sees the performer himself - he is simply a window opening upon a great work of art. ~ Marcel Proust

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician. ~ Charlie Haden

If it takes me 10 years to be the musician I want to be, great. ~ Demi Lovato

I never use someone just because they are great musicians. I work with people who have the same kind of feeling towards the music that I do, and the subject that I'm speaking of at that time. ~ Angelique Kidjo

A great musician is just a thief who doesn't get caught ~ Buddy Rich

The great thing is that I'm getting my revenge on everybody who treated me badly in high school. The bad thing is I had to go back to high school to do it. ~ Anne Beatts

As to hanging, it is no great hardship. For were it not for that, every cowardly fellow would turn pirate and so unfit the sea, that men of courage must starve. ~ Anne Bonny

You can define a net two ways, depending on your point of view. Normally you would say it is a meshed instrument designed to catch fish. But you could, with no great injury to logic, reverse the image and define the net as a jocular lexicographer once did: he called it a collection of holes tied together with string. ~ Julian Barnes

His secret, like those of nine of his fellow seniors, is safe with me. At Milton High, I'm my own statistic. People fail to see the great equalizer, the one thing the band geeks, the drama nerds, the jocks, and the preppies all have in common.
Me-Mercedes Ayres.
The girl who took their virginity. ~ Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

The only barrier to entry you can create is to consistently build a great product. ~ Aaron Levie

When we meet the great men and women of the Bible face-to-face, we may be surprised to discover just how much like us they are. It is faith in a great God that makes a great man or woman of God. ~ Mike Bickle

Vision, even for a dragon, is woefully unreliable. What you can see with great clarity may not be real; what you cannot see may be the ultimate reality. ~ T.A. Barron

I took photos from 1976 to when I left in 1993, primarily for Interview and a column I had called "Bob Colacello's Out" which Andy had conceived of. I've never taken a picture since, not even with my phone! It just felt too Andy Warhol to keep going around town taking photographs. And I never really thought of doing anything with them after I left the magazine until this great Art Director Sam Shahid about for or five years ago asked where all of the old photos were. ~ Bob Colacello

There is one timeless way of building. It is a thousand years old, and the same today as it has ever been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. ~ Christopher Alexander

Stephen Hawking said he spent most of his first couple of years at Cambridge reading science fiction (and I believe that, because his grades weren't all that great). ~ Frederik Pohl

Within you lies a power that is so great, so profound, so vibrant, and closer within your reach then you ever thought possible. ~ Kush Desai

There have been many great musicians that, Clifford Brown is one great example, I mean he died very early, 25. ~ Sonny Rollins

All is ready. Except me. I am being given, if I may venture the expression, birth to into death, such is my impression. The feet are clear already, of the great cunt of existence. Favourable presentation I trust. My head will be the last to die. Haul in your hands. I can't. The render rent. My story ended I'll be living yet. Promising lag. That is the end of me. I shall say I no more. ~ Samuel Beckett

At the time when everyone in Syracuse desired the death of Dionysius, an elderly woman prayed over and over that he would be unharmed and outlive her. And after the tyrant learned about this, he asked her why she did so. Then the woman said: 'When I was a girl, we had an oppressive tyrant, and I wished for another ruler. And after the tyrant was killed, a harsher one succeeded the latter shortly afterwards, and I thought that it would be a great blessing if the successor's rule would also be terminated. We then had a still harsher ruler, yourself. And so if you were removed, a worse tyrant will replace you'. ~ Thomas Aquinas

My galley, charged with forgetfulness,
Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass
'Tween rock and rock; and eke mine enemy, alas,
That is my lord, steereth with cruelness;
And every oar a thought in readiness,
As though that death were light in such a case.
An endless wind doth tear the sail apace
Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness.
A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain,
Hath done the weared cords great hinderance;
Wreathed with error and eke with ignorance.
The stars be hid that led me to this pain.
Drowned is reason that should me consort,
And I remain despairing of the port. ~ Thomas Wyatt

If a human being dreams a great dream, dares to love somebody; if a human being dares to be Martin King, or Mahatma Gandhi, or Mother Theresa, or Malcolm X; if a human being dares to be bigger than the condition into which she or he was born-it means so can you. And so you can try to stretch, stretch, stretch yourself so you can internalize, 'Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto. I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me.' That's one thing I'm learning. ~ Maya Angelou

As you enter this place of work please choose to make today a great day. Your colleagues, customers, team members, and you yourself will be thankful. Find ways to play. We can be serious about our work without being serious about ourselves. Stay focused in order to be present when your customers and team mebers most need you. And should you feel your enegery lapsing, try this surefire remedy: Find someone who needs a helping hand, a word of support, or a good ear - and make their day. ~ Stephen C. Lundin

Working with Woody Allen was extremely gratifying. He has such a vast catalog of great work that doing one of his films was somewhat unreal. ~ Theo James

Alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right. Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For, nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust, trust in the world, because this human being exists - that is the most inward achievement of the relation in education. Because this human being exists, meaninglessness, however hard pressed you are by it, cannot be the real truth. Because this human being exists, in the darkness the light lies hidden, in fear salvation, and in the callousness of one's fellow-men the great Love. ~ Martin Buber

With the Wit, one is aware of all the life that surrounds one. It was not just the warmth of the mare nearby that I sensed. I knew the scintillant forms of the myriad insects that populated the grasses, and felt even the shadowy life force of the great oak that lifted its limbs between the moon and me. Just up the hillside, a rabbit crouched motionless in the summer grasses. I felt its indistinct presence, not as a piece of life located in a certain place, but as one sometimes hears a single voice's note within a market's roar. But above all, I felt a physical kinship with all that lived in the world. I had a right to be here. I was as much a part of this summer night as the insects or the water purling past my feet. I think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgment: that we are a part of that world, no more, but certainly no less than the rabbit."
p. 129 ~ Robin Hobb

You'll never be great without taking a chance. -Shinedown, Diamond Eyes. ~ Anna Snow

No one cared when you were doing nothing. If they now criticize, ridicule, & character assassinate you means you're doing something great... ~ Assegid Habtewold

The absence of trust is clearly inimical to a well-run society. The great Jane Jacobs noted as much with respect to the very practical business of urban life and the maintenance of cleanliness and civility on city streets. If we don't trust each other, our towns will look horrible and be nasty places to live. Moreover, she observed, you cannot institutionalize trust. Once corroded, it is virtually impossible to restore. ~ Tony Judt

Begin to chase your dreams with great passion. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

[L]e philosophe n'a jamais tué de prêtres et le prêtre a tué beaucoup de philosophes...

(The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.) ~ Denis Diderot

At Oxford University, I studied languages so I could read the great novels as they were originally written. I took what in the United States would be a double major in Russian and French, but I have to admit that the pressure of getting through so many books spoiled reading for me. ~ Kate Beckinsale

My God, I marvel that I am still so full of myself after having so often received Communion! O dear Jesus, be the child inside of us, so that we feel within and breathe forth nothing but you. Alas, you are so often within me; why am I so rarely in you? You enter into me; why am I so often outside of you? You are in my very self; why am I not in yours, to find there the great love of yours that transports our hearts? ~ Francis De Sales

It's the sum of many parts which grow to be something great. ~ Oliver Bierhoff

Why do we want to live for ever? Because we hope that tomorrow will bring us someone we can love. Because we want to live another day with the person we love beside us. Because we want to find someone who deserves our Love and who, in turn, will know how to love us as we deserve to be loved. That is why, when a man has no one to love him, he feels a great desire to die. As long as he has friends, people who love him and whom he loves too, he will live. Because to live is to love. ~ Henry Drummond

It's much easier to have a diversified career as an electronic musician than it is as a drummer. Nothing against drummers. If you're a drummer, you just wait around for people to ask you to play drums. But if you have your own studio and can make music, you have the ability to approach music a lot differently. ~ Moby

Sometimes, in moments of great need, we can do wonderful things. ~ E. Nesbit

Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. ~ Andre Maurois

If you feel a need to get wired, take my advice. Loud, fast music coupled with strong, black coffee is the best way to go. ~ Lou Brutus

If Lord Duryodhana was an evil man, why did great men like Bhishma, Drona, Kripa, Karna, entire army of Krishna fight war on his side?? ~ Anand Neelakantan

But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's a great puzzle! ~ Lewis Carroll

Spring time is a season of great hope and strength. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita