Igor Quotes

Even in name, he seems like a Victorian oddity. "Igor, fetch 'the Crouch' from the catacombs, we're going to the graveyard". ~ Russell Brand

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The perfection of performance has escalated to the extent that the music itself is threatened with relegation. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos? ~ Igor Stravinsky

I appreciate cooperation with Turkey on many issues. We are grateful for the support we receive for E.U. and NATO integration for Montenegro. ~ Igor Luksic

IT WASN'T A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. It should have been, but that's the weather for you. For every mad scientist who's had a convenient thunderstorm just on the night his Great Work is finished and lying on the slab, there have been dozens who've sat around aimlessly under the peaceful stars while Igor clocks up the overtime. ~ Terry Pratchett

The more you paint the more fluent you are with your brush. ~ Igor Babailov

Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. ~ Igor Stravinsky

And now, it turns out that our mother's name means benevolence and generosity to people as objects of love! This is both a unique and beautiful name, Charity. "It was one of life's cruel ironies," I thought, "that a midwife, or whoever filled in the documents, must have known our mom's name. I suppose she had a lot of fun naming us Hope and Faith! Or, on the contrary, she sympathized. ~ Igor Eliseev

The past slips from our grasp. It leaves us only scattered things. The bond that united them eludes us. Our imagination usually fills in the void by making use of preconceived theories ... Archaeology, then, does not supply us with certitudes, but rather with vague hypotheses. And in the shade of these hypotheses some artists are content to dream, considering them less as scientific facts than as sources of inspiration. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Suffering through his classes, the young Igor steeped himself in angst. He would later describe his childhood as 'a period of waiting for the moment when I could send everyone and everything connected with it to hell. ~ Jonah Lehrer

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Baton technique is to a conductor what fingers are to a pianist. ~ Igor Markevitch

There is no beauty in Music itself, the beauty is within the listener ~ Igor Stravinsky

I never understood the need for a "live" audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one. ~ Igor Stravinsky

To be deprived of art and left alone with philosophy is to be close to Hell. ~ Igor Stravinsky

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Igor?' said Moist. 'You have an Igor?'
Oh, yes,' said Hubert. 'That's how I get this wonderful light. They know the secret of storing lightning in jars! But don't let that worry you, Mr Lipspick. Just because I'm employing an Igor and working in a cellar doesn't mean I'm some sort of madman, ha ha ha!'
Ha ha,' agreed Moist.
Ha hah hah!,' said Hubert. 'Hahahahahaha!! Ahahahahahahhhhh!!!!!-'
Bent slapped him on the back. Hubert coughed.
Sorry about that, it's the air down here,' he mumbled. ~ Terry Pratchett

Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself. ~ Igor Stravinsky

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation. ~ Igor Sikorsky

My friends are appeased to stay in Odessa for their entire lives. They are appeased to age like their parents, and become parents like their parents. They do not desire anything more than everything they have known. OK, but this is not for me, and it will not be for Little Igor. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Don't share your secrets if you preface them with 'just don't tell anybody. ~ Igor Babailov

There is music wherever there is rhythm, as there is life wherever there beats a pulse. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Though many people said there is no joint border between Turkey and Montenegro, it feels like we are next to each other. We are in the same neighborhood. ~ Igor Luksic

According to recognized aero technical tests, the bumblebee cannot fly because of the shape and weight of his body in relation to the total wing area. The bumblebee doesn't know this, so he goes ahead and flies anyway. ~ Igor Sikorsky

I was ... attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing "simple" music, blamed for deserting "modernism," accused of renouncing my "true Russian heritage." People who had never heard of, or cared about, the originals cried "sacrilege": "The classics are ours. Leave the classics alone." To them all my answer was and is the same: You "respect," but I love. ~ Igor Stravinsky

People can text with two hands and are so fast and I am not ... I just have that one person I want to talk to. ~ Igor Levit

Hurry? I have no time to hurry. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being? ~ Igor Stravinsky

All of us, the government, parliament, local authorities and the society must demonstrate determination and readiness to use knowledge and capabilities ... toward full European integration. ~ Igor Luksic

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I have one guy that I really have to talk to once a day, and if I don't talk to him once a day, I really feel like something is not completed. This is, like, an attraction story. ~ Igor Levit

Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn. ~ Igor Stravinsky

We always humble ourselves before bastards - it has already become a tradition. ~ Igor Eliseev

I choose to paint beauty. ~ Igor Babailov

Why is Mediocrity now good enough?
When did crap become the new black? ~ Igor Goldkind

Can you just saw his arm off while we're here and get me loose? (Amanda)
I could do that, but he needs his more. I'd cut yours off before I did his. (Tate)
Oh, great, what are you, his Igor? (Amanda)
Wrong movie, Igor was Frankenstein's flunky. Renfield is the one you're thinking of, and no, I'm not Renfield. Name's Tate Bennett. Parish coroner. (Tate) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Every Hungarian wishes to die an elegant gentleman ~ Igor Janke

It's Okay," he answered and smiled ironically. "I should be grateful to the knife that's curing me for being so sharp. ~ Igor Eliseev

I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Silence, which will save from shame, will also deprive me of fame. ~ Igor Stravinsky

My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned to myself for each one of my undertakings. I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the claims that shackle the spirit." - Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music ~ Dennis DeSantis

All music is nothing more than a succession of impulses that converge towards a definite point of repose. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The performance of performance has developed to such an extent in recent years that it challenges the music itself and will soon threaten it with relegation. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end. ~ Igor Stravinsky

I suddenly remembered that Murray Gell-Mann and I were supposed to give talks at that conference on the present situation of high-energy physics. My talk was set for the plenary session, so I asked the guide, "Sir, where would the talks for the plenary session of the conference be?"

"Back in that room that we just came through."

"Oh!" I said in delight. "Then I'm gonna give a speech in that room!"

The guide looked down at my dirty pants and my sloppy shirt. I realized how dumb that remark must have sounded to him, but it was genuine surprise and delight on my part.

We went along a little bit farther, and the guide said, "This is a lounge for the various delegates, where they often hold informal discussions." They were some small, square windows in the doors to the lounge that you could look through, so people looked in. There were a few men sitting there talking.

I looked through the windows and saw Igor Tamm, a physicist from Russia that I know. "Oh!" I said. "I know that guy!" and I started through the door.

The guide screamed, "No, no! Don't go in there!" By this time he was sure he had a maniac on his hands, but he couldn't chase me because he wasn't allowed to go through the door himself! ~ Richard P. Feynman

Good composers don't borrow, they steal ~ Igor Stravinsky

The more controlled, limited and tormented art is, the freer it is. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Probably, sooner or later every person founds oneself to be needless. ~ Igor Eliseev

A cultural snob is someone who claims to be familiar with the incomprehensible. ~ Igor Stravinsky

On a distant hilltop, twinkling like an early evening star, a white light was flashing.
Blouse lowered his telescope. 'They're repeating "CQ",' he said. 'And I believe those longer pauses are when they're aiming their tube in different directions. They're looking for their spies. "Seek You", see? Private Igor?'
'Thur?'
'You know how that tube works, don't you?'
'Oh, yeth, thur. You jutht light a flare in the box, and then it'th just point and click.'
'You're not going to answer it, are you, sir?' said Jackrum, horrified.
'I am indeed, sergeant,' said Blouse briskly. 'Private Carborundum, please assemble the tube. Manickle, please bring the lantern. I shall need to read the code book.'
'But that'll give away our position!' said Jackrum.
'No, sergeant, because although this term may be unfamiliar to you I intend to what we call "lie",' said Blouse. 'Igor, I'm sure you have some scissors, although I'd rather you didn't attempt to repeat the word.'
'I have thome of the appliantheth you mention, thur,' said Igorina stiffly. ~ Terry Pratchett

I think that the tying of the Montenegrin economy with the euro is a much better option than the adventure of printing our own currency. ~ Igor Luksic

It's a luxury to have so much time, especially with someone so important and busy. You have to get a feel for the person. ~ Igor Babailov

It is sinful for students to badmouth their teachers and sinful for teachers to mislead their students. ~ Igor Babailov

I'm not good at texting because I'm an older generation, old school. And nobody ever listens to the answering machine anymore. It's terrible. ~ Igor Levit

I think after music is performance because it is also an immaterial form of art, and then there's everything else. ~ Igor Levit

If an artist tells you "this is an oak tree," then it better be an oak tree. It's how you proclaim things; if you say "the silence is the music," then it's the music. ~ Igor Levit

One's belief that one is sincere is not so dangerous as one's conviction that one is right. We all feel we are right; but we felt the same way twenty years ago and today we know we weren't always right. ~ Igor Stravinsky

It is far easier to debate about realistic painting than to paint one. ~ Igor Babailov

My music is best understood by children and animals. ~ Igor Stravinsky

It is my conviction that the public always shows itself more honest in its spontaneity than do those who officially set themselves up as judges of works of art. ~ Igor Stravinsky

If a man is in need of rescue, an airplane can come in and throw flowers on him, and that's just about all. But a direct lift aircraft could come in and save his life. ~ Igor Sikorsky

I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven. ~ Igor Stravinsky

When I discovered that I had been made custodian of this gift, in my earliest childhood, I pledged myself to God to be worthy of it, but I have received uncovenanted mercies all my life. The custodian has too often kept faith on his all-too-worldly terms. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Even though these are different times, right now we are particularly thinking about what is leadership, and Washington's qualities are as needed today as they were at the founding of this great nation. ~ Igor Babailov

You have always understood and accepted my most genuine, most intimate impulses and responded to them with surprising accuracy. I wish all people turned into such mirrors for each other. ~ Igor Eliseev

Whether it is drawing or painting, skilled Artists usually deliver a faster result without jeopardizing the quality, simply because they don't have to waste their time on fixing mistakes. ~ Igor Babailov

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Do you know anything about frogs?"

"Frogs?"

"Yes, various biological studies have shown that if a frog is placed in a container along with water from its own pond, it will remain there, utterly still, while the water is slowly heated up. The frog doesn't react to the gradual increase in temperature, to the changes in its environment, and when the water reaches the boiling point, the frog dies, fat and happy.

On the other hand, if a frog is thrown into a container full of already boiling water it will jump straight out again, scalded, but alive!"
Olivia doesn't quite see what this has to do with the destruction of the world. Igor goes on:
"I was like that boiled frog. I didn't notice the changes. I thought everything was fine, that the bad things would just go away, that it was just a matter of time. I was ready to die because I lost the most important thing in my life, but instead of reacting, I sat there bobbing apathetically about in water that was getting hotter by the minute. ~ Paulo Coelho

Even when you paint, you never stop drawing. ~ Igor Babailov

Realist artists should join together in a worldwide effort ... Sharing it with each other and teaching it - that is the key to the success and never-ending beauty and harmony of Realism. ~ Igor Babailov

If you have ambitions to go beyond your dreams, you should not seek to copy others' styles, but rather aim to acquire the fundamentals of the timeless principles of academic school, which is a prerequisite for the development of your Uniqueness as an Artist. ~ Igor Babailov

It is the transcendent (or 'abstract' or 'self-contained') nature of music that the new so called concretism
Pop Art, eighteen-hour slices-of-reality films, musique concrete
opposes. But instead of bringing art and reality closer together, the new movement merely thins out the distinction. ~ Igor Stravinsky

When you have humor, you have a base for collaboration. It is very important. ~ Igor Levit

An artist is like a pig snouting truffles. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Composers can do things that weren't allowed in the 17th century. Until we had composers like Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff to break the rules. ~ Aaron Zigman

A good composer does not imitate; he steals. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The further one separates himself from the precepts of the Christian Church, the further one distances himself from the truth. Only God can create. I make music from music. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle. ~ Igor Sikorsky

All our life we had been dreaming to get through every little hole into this beautiful and unfamiliar world where parents and children love each other not for something but in spite of everything, to plunge into this fairy world entirely, settle down and live there. So why didn't I feel happy when it happened for real? ~ Igor Eliseev

It would be right to say that the helicopter's role in saving lives represents one of the most glorious pages in the history of human flight. ~ Igor Sikorsky

At times it is so enjoyable to mire your neighbor into the filth you already got stuck in long ago! ~ Igor Eliseev

I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. 'That's different. For a monkey, it's terrific'. ~ Igor Stravinsky

A lot of habitually creative people have preparation rituals linked to the setting in which they choose to start their day. By putting themselves into that environment, they start their creative day.

The composer Igor Stravinsky did the same thing every morning when he entered his studio to work: He sat at the piano and played a Bach fugue. Perhaps he needed the ritual to feel like a musician, or the playing somehow connected him to musical notes, his vocabulary. Perhaps he was honoring his hero, Bach, and seeking his blessing for the day. Perhaps it was nothing more than a simple method to get his fingers moving, his motor running, his mind thinking music. But repeating the routine each day in the studio induced some click that got him started.

In the end, there is no ideal condition for creativity. What works for one person is useless for another. The only criterion is this: Make it easy on yourself. Find a working environment where the prospect of wrestling with your muse doesn't scare you, doesn't shut you down. It should make you want to be there, and once you find it, stick with it. To get the creative habit, you need a working environment that's habit-forming. All preferred working states, no matter how eccentric, have one thing in common: When you enter into them, they compel you to get started. ~ Twyla Tharp

The ability to draw from life determines the artist's skill. This is why live drawing classes have always been at the top of the curriculum for properly structured academic workshops. ~ Igor Babailov

As the spiral of modern art history continues to wind down, we can see the increasing demand for tradition in the visual arts. ~ Igor Babailov

I got thrown out of music school for even listening to Fats Domino and Ray Charles. I was asked, 'What kind of music do you like to listen to?' and I said, 'Well, I do like Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky but I also like Fats Domino and Ray Charles,' and they literally said, 'Either forget about that or leave.' ~ Steve Winwood

Would he as well neglect the perishing person, wouldn't he help to get up, would he turn away? I think I know the answer is obvious. He was flying so high above each of us that after falling down he got below everybody else. To be precise, he was simply knocked down. And we, none of us, just did nothing. Thus, with everybody's silent acquiescence, the best of us were eliminated in order to let others decay. ~ Igor Eliseev

I never am sea sick, never. I am sea drunk! ~ Igor Stravinsky

I'm much better at saying something on the answering machine than texting. ~ Igor Levit

PROLOGUE
Some years ago in the Planet Orfheus ...

It was dark when Lucius reached the rendezvous which had been chosen to be the new hideout. The latter had been used for several months and they were concerned that they were being followed and were close to being discovered.
"I thought you were not coming. I've been waiting for you for
almost an hour. I was getting anxious," Sofia said, relieved.
"Sorry, love. It is becoming increasingly difficult. I almost didn't
make it today. The troops were ambushed in the last invasion. Igor and many warriors returned seriously injured," Lucius replied. He looked worried. Why this sudden encounter? They had agreed that the next would be the following week.
Lucius gave her a big hug, pulled her close to him, and remained
silent for a few moments. His longing and desire consumed him. She meant the world to him. Without Sofia, his life would never make sense. He would never forget those eyes, serene and sincere, with a blue so bright and clear that were able to see the soul of the tormented warrior that was he. With her golden hair, Sofia looked like an angel.
"Is there a problem? You're so quiet and deep in thought," she
asked, puzzled.

He answered, "I'm thinking about us. How long are we keeping
it secret?" He walked away from her, sighing. "We can't keep lying and pretending that all is well. You have no idea how much I have to endure when you are away f ~ Gisele De Assis

It is like a dream to feel the machine lift you gently up in the air, float smoothly over one spot, ~ Igor Sikorsky

We have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it. ~ Igor Stravinsky

The helicopter appeared so reluctant to fly forward that we even considered turning the pilot's seat around and letting it fly backward. ~ Igor Sikorsky

Through the 'It's About Ability' campaign and with parents and other members of society, we have created a social family for children with disabilities. ~ Igor Luksic

You never know what you're going to share. I can play, I know what is written - the marks, the things the composer tells me to do - and I do it, but it will still sound different each day. ~ Igor Levit