Literature And Music Quotes

Our ancestors had fought and murdered one another, married and forged alliances, founded countries. At their best - but only for selfish reasons - they patronized art, literature, and music. But their worlds had to be overthrown by revolutions, because there was room in them only for themselves. ~ Andrei Codrescu

There's a real question as to what beauty is and why it's important to us. Many pseudo-philosophers try to answer these questions and tell us they're not really answerable. I draw on art and literature, and music in particular, because music is a wonderful example of something that's in this world but not of this world. Great works of music speak to us from another realm even though they speak to us in ordinary physical sounds. ~ Roger Scruton

Science begins with the world we have to live in, accepting its data and trying to explain its laws. From there, it moves toward the imagination: it becomes a mental construct, a model of a possible way of interpreting experience. The further it goes in this direction, the more it tends to speak the language of mathematics, which is really one of the languages of the imagination, along with literature and music. Art, on the other hand, begins with the world we construct, not with the world we see. It starts with the imagination, and then works toward ordinary experience. ~ Northrop Frye

All art, literature, and music must be born in your heart's blood. Art is your heart's blood. ~ Edvard Munch

The usual consolations of life, friendship and sex included, appealed to Newton hardly at all. Art, literature, and music had scarcely more allure. He dismissed the classical sculptures in the Earl of Pembroke's renowned collection as "stone dolls." He waved poetry aside as "a kind of ingenious nonsense." He rejected opera after a single encounter. "The first Act I heard with pleasure, the 2d stretch'd my patience, at the 3d I ran away. ~ Edward Dolnick

In elaborating how "philosophy by showing" works, and in defending the idea that literature and music can contribute to philosophical "showing", I am also doing something more standardly philosophical. But I view most of the book as an interweaving of philosophy and literary criticism. If that entails a broadening of a standard idea of philosophy, it's a broadening I'd like to see happen. ~ Philip Kitcher

The whole of Paris is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music ... it is worth anyone's while to dally here for years. Paris is a seminar, a post-graduate course in everything. ~ James Thurber

There is absolutely no single aspect of one's personality that is more important to develop than empathy, which is not a skill at which men typically are asked to excel. I believe empathy is not only the core of art, literature and music, but should also be at the core of society, from ethics to economics. ~ Chris Ware

About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough - and even miraculous enough if you insist - I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?

Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others - while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity - so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existential ~ Christopher Hitchens

The Greeks' sculpture and athletics celebrated the human form, their literature and music human passion, their discourse and philosophy human reason. In ~ Steven Pressfield

For me, there was no great myth around the movies when I was a young child. My father was very simple about the whole thing. He did not consider cinema an art. Cinema was entertainment. Literature and music were art. ~ Jacques Audiard

The arts translate life into film and literature and music and repeat a deadly poison: the monotonous in life must be protected at all costs. ~ Morrissey

A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' ... ~ Christopher Hitchens

One of the things I could never get accustomed to in my youth was the difference I found between life and literature. ~ James Joyce

For me, 'risky' is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is. ~ Taylor Swift

I need to do a concert to celebrate David Bowie's electronic music. And in so doing, I'm not taking a step back, I'm taking a step forward and presenting it in its entirety so people can understand this type of visionary. ~ Carlos Alomar

I've never really presumed to know what my fans want or like. When I'm making the music, I just chase whatever I find interesting that day and luckily there are people who find it interesting as well. ~ Eric Hutchinson

I never really saw my dad around when the Iron Maiden and the AC/DC were playing. But he knew what I was doing. I was just absorbing music. So he just kind of left me to my own devices. ~ Dhani Harrison

Great music can come from anywhere around the globe. And there has always been a music business. It just wasn't recorded, nor was it centered in New York, London, Los Angeles or Nashville but rather St Petersburg, Vienna, Berlin, Milan and Paris. ~ Seymour Stein

Even if the songs are at times painful - 'cause some of the songs are not all roses and balloons; some of them dig into deep things that I've been going through - there's a joy that I think people feel from my music and, hopefully, from my performance because I am so in love with doing what I do. ~ Rachel Platten

All the arts, music, the visual arts, acting and dancing arts, cooking arts, and I believe sports, will save the human race because they can leap over barriers, religions, leap over barriers of race, politics. ~ Pete Seeger

Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid. ~ Langston Hughes

At times when I am myself sitting at a retreat, and at the end I get into my car to drive away, I watch my hand move forward to turn on the radio. When I can be mindful, I notice the fact that I actually don't want in that moment to listen to the news or hear some music. ~ Sharon Salzberg

If God is Mother, then we need only gather together with people and adore her through rituals intended to satisfy the female soul, ritual involving dance, fire, water, air, earth, songs, music, flowers, and beauty. ~ Paulo Coelho

There is a cheap literature that speaks to us of the need of escape. It is true that when we travel we are in search of distance. But distance is not to be found. It melts away. And escape has never led anywhere. The moment a man finds that he must play the races, go the Arctic, or make war in order to feel himself alive, that man has begin to spin the strands that bind him to other men and to the world. But what wretched strands! A civilization that is really strong fills man to the brim, though he never stir. What are we worth when motionless, is the question. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

I'm not a big fan of the thought that you can become a star by winning a contest. I'm sort of old-fashioned. I think people need to get out there and they need to work and they need to do their music because they love it. If they become successful, then great, and if they are not, whatever. ~ Rob Zombie

I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music. ~ John Coltrane

I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it. ~ Noah Baumbach

I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never got there ... I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play everyday. ~ Miles Davis

It is quite natural, then, that the solidly unionized professional paraphrast experiences a surge of dull hatred and fear, and in some cases real panic, when confronted with the possibility that a shift in fashion, or the influence of an adventurous publishing house, may suddenly remove from his head the cryptic rosebush he carries or the maculated shield erected between him and the specter of inexorable knowledge. As a result the canned music of rhymed versions is enthusiastically advertised, and accepted, and the sacrifice of textual precision applauded as something rather heroic, whereas only suspicion and bloodhounds await the gaunt, graceless literalist groping around in despair for the obscure word that would satisfy impassioned fidelity and accumulating in the process a wealth of information which only makes the advocates of pretty camouflage tremble or sneer. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

She does not read it the way she and Kat used to read books - devouring them with the speed of two people famished for words, ideas, and beautiful sentences that make you feel everything. No, she reads Endurance the way a person might read the Bible - in small passages, repeated again and again, to help her stay grounded. To help her persevere, and understand her place in the world.
She has missed books, but she's been afraid of them, same as music. Books make you feel things hard. They hit the tender spots. Books remind her of her and Kat, but also of her old self, too, the mostly carefree self. The girl who was just so happy to come home from the library with a big stack of new stuff to read. Books were dangerous. ~ Deb Caletti

I put on the most serious face I could muster. "We're about to embark on a journey." I used the Twilight Zone voice. "Full of involuntary sleepless nights, throw-up, and out-of-control behavior. Our freedom will no longer exist; our identities will vanish before our very eyes. We. Will. Be. PARENTS!" I mimicked loud, thundering music.

"Glad you're excited," Mia said. ~ Renee Carlino

I've always had a close connection to both rock and classical music. ~ Catherine Asaro

Let the music keep our spirits high, let the buildings keep our children dry, let creation reveal its secrets by and bye. ~ Jackson Browne

The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is born in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. ~ Raymond Chandler

Their chief occupations are feasting, fighting, and making love, and playing the most beautiful music. They have only one industrious person amongst them, the lepra-caun - the shoemaker. ~ W.B.Yeats

The mystery of sound is mysticism; the harmony of life is religion. The knowledge of vibrations is metaphysics, the analysis of atoms is science, and their harmonious grouping is art. The rhythm of form is poetry, and the rhythm of sound is music. This shows that music is the art of arts and the science of allsciences; and it contains the fountain of all knowledge within itself. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

I grew up listening to Nick Drake. Without him, I would not write music - and 'Pink Moon' is my favourite LP. ~ Gabrielle Aplin

At Harvard I was taking an African-American studies class, and we were reading about the tragic mulatto. Invariably, the tragic mulatto can't fit in either world and flings herself off a bridge. So I'm reading, and I'm like, 'Oh, my God, I think I'm in literature,' but my life was never like that. ~ Soledad O'Brien

To those of you who study history, economics, sociology, literature and language I present the challenge of the utilization of the enormous resources in our grasp to the problem of creating a genuinely good life for yourselves and your children. ~ Polykarp Kusch

I'm comfortable with my femininity, and I don't try to change what I look like just because I'm reporting on football at the end of the night. ~ Lisa Guerrero

I had two passions growing up - one was music, one was technology. I tried to play in a band for a while, but I was never talented enough to make it. And I started companies. One day came along and I decided to combine the two - and there was Spotify. ~ Daniel Ek

She said nothing, she only looked at me without a word. But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don't blame! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

'Aqualung' marks the point at which I had the confidence as a songwriter and as a guitar player to actually pick up and play the guitar and be at the forefront of the band. It's also the album on which I began to address religious issues in my music, and I think that happened simply because the time was right for it. ~ Ian Anderson

If shame had a face I think it
would kind of look like mine
If it had a home would it be my eyes
Would you believe me if I said I'm tired of this
Well here we go now one more time

I tried to climb your steps
I tried to chase you down
I tried to see how low I could get it down to the ground
I tried to earn my way
I tried to tame this mind
You better believe that I tried to beat this

[CHORUS]
So when will this end it goes on and on
Over and over and over again
Keep spinning around I know that it won't stop
Till I step down from this for good

I never thought I'd end up here
Never thought I'd be standing where I am
I guess I kinda thought it would be easier than this
I guess I was wrong now one more time

I tried to climb your steps
I tried to chase you down
I tried to see how long I could get it down to the ground
I tried to earn my way
I tried to tame this mind
You better believe that I tried yo beat this

[REPEAT CHORUS]
Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick sycle, yeah
Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick cycle, yeah

[REPEAT CHORUS TWICE]
Sick cycle carousel
Sick cycle carousel
Sick cycle carousel... ~ Lifehouse

Those who know me know I won't hesitate to turn around and point someone out. ~ Jim Lehrer

No matter who we are, no matter what our circumstances, our feelings and emotions are universal. And music has always been a great way to make people aware of that connection. It can help you open up a part of yourself and express feelings you didn't know you were feeling. It's risky to let that happen. But it's a risk you have to take-because only then will you find you're not alone. ~ Josh Groban

That by listening to some music, by reading some books, by looking at paintings, and most important by hanging out with one another - by collaborating with one another and creating your own network - you can achieve something that is much better than what is out there. ~ David Amram

I started in '88 to play House music, it was a huge revolution for me. I went to London and I saw a DJ on stage and that was crazy at the time. I was one of the really respected and famous DJs in Paris, but they would never show me. I was hidden. A DJ on stage and people dancing and facing the DJ, looking at him? I was like 'wow! ~ David Guetta

These emotions, this love, this fear, this gratitude, this relief, the grief – none of it really
exists. None of it has mass or location, none of it can be weighed or photographed. None of
these emotions last, none of them can be measured – except in that very moment when we're
feeling them. They're like music – once the notes are played, they disappear. They only exist
in that moment in time. Love isn't merely something we feel, it's something we create –
something we have to keep creating in each and every moment. It's a song we have to keep
playing.
Because we know it doesn't really exist. We can't hold it. We can't lock it away. We can't
insure it. It's just a melody we play on and on. Our own Songline. We can only go on playing
it, moment by moment, until we're all out of moments.
It seems sort of pointless, striving so hard for perfection in something that doesn't really
exist. But, my, what a symphony it is.
And it's funny really, because for something that doesn't exist, it seems to be the only
thing that human beings never run out of. As long as we have faith in its magic, love is the
only thing that lasts. ~ Sarah MacManus

Each kind of generation of bands forgets how they got here. Waylon Jennings came out and they're like, 'That's not Patsy Cline.' And everyone panicked, like, 'I don't know what happened to country music, but this isn't it.' ~ Kristian Bush