Player Piano Quotes

I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll. ~ John C. Reilly

I would just hear piano players and I would hear music, and just think - I don't just want to sit here and passively listen; I want to get inside it. ~ Hugh Laurie

Vonnegut's earliest novels hint strongly at his familiarity with Wiener's work, The Human Use of Human Beings, especially his first novel, Player Piano (1952), which shows his concern for the social implications of automation, the replacement of human beings with machines. ~ David Porush

Bob Erlendson, a local piano player, taught me chord structure and which scales go along with them. Later, I began listening to [pianists] Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner. Then I got interested in [saxophonist] John Coltrane. ~ Lenny Breau

He remembered his cry of the night before: We must meet in the middle of the Bridge! ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules - and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

[Thelonious] Monk is a subject in itself. I mean, most piano players in most big bands sit down and they play with the band, you know. But Monk would just sit there like this. And all of a sudden there'd be a pause from all the trumpets and everything and Monk would go 'plink!' like that. And everybody would go 'Yeah! ~ Ray Brown

I have graded my separate works from A to D. The grades I hand out to myself do not place me in literary history. I am comparing myself with myself. Thus can I give myself an A-plus for Cat's Cradle, while knowing that there was a writer named William Shakespeare. The report card is chronological, so you can plot my rise and fall on graph paper, if you like:
Player Piano B
The Sirens of Titan A
Mother Night A
Cat's Cradle A-plus
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater A
Slaughterhouse-Five A-plus
Welcome to the Monkey House B-minus
Happy Birthday, Wanda June D
Breakfast of Champions C
Wampeters, Foma & Grandfalloons C
Slapstick D
Jailbird A
Palm Sunday C ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I've watched other people singing, I've become a much better singer. I've become a singer that plays the piano instead of a piano player that sings. ~ Elton John

Louis Armstrong changed all the brass players around, but after Bird, all of the instruments had to change - drums, piano, bass, trombones, trumpets, saxophones, everything. ~ Cootie Williams

And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Bad guys turned informer. Good guys didn't - no matter when, no matter what. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I became a so-called science fiction writer when someone decreed that I was a science fiction writer. I did not want to be classified as one, so I wondered in what way I'd offended that I would not get credit for being a serious writer. I decided that it was because I wrote about technology, and most fine American writers know nothing about technology. I got classified as a science fiction writer simply because I wrote about Schenectady, New York. My first book, Player Piano, was about Schenectady. There are huge factories in Schenectady and nothing else. I and my associates were engineers, physicists, chemists, and mathematicians. And when I wrote about the General Electric Company and Schenectady, it seemed a fantasy of the future to critics who had never seen the place. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

He's a seminal force, a guru, an original creator of the New Orleans piano style.. the teacher of great players like Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, Mac Rebenack, James Booker, and Huey Smith. All acknowledge him as The Great Master. ~ Jerry Wexler

Rugby players are either piano shifters or piano movers. Fortunately, I am one of those who can play a tune. ~ Pierre Danos

I'd like to be a piano player. ~ Chris Daughtry

When we'd gone to Disneyland, the tree house had been my favorite thing in the whole park. If only I'd had no parents watching my every move, if only I'd been a happy, carefree orphan, I'd have hidden under the player piano until everything closed, and then taken up residence there. ~ Karen Joy Fowler

I grew up in rural Oregon in a log house with bark left on inside and out. We had no electricity, a massive stone fireplace, a grand piano, and tons of books. ~ Virginia Euwer Wolff

NFL owners should quit worrying about silly things like players celebrating in the end zone. They should give them something to really celebrate. Get rid of the artificial surfaces. ~ O.J. Simpson

To succeed in life one must have determination and must be prepared to suffer during the process. If one isn't prepared to suffer during adversities, I don't really see how he can be successful. ~ Gary Player

I like writing on piano and a computer, and a lot of 'Plans' came out of samples and vocal lines. ~ Ben Gibbard

When I hear the piano played in a compositional way, like in a songwriter's way in a compositional way, there's a certain arc to that that I love. ~ Chick Corea

I'm an action player. I like to be aggressive. I don't like to be on the run. I like to feel like I have the fates in my hands and that through my skill or lack thereof I control my fate. ~ Eugene Jarvis

I want your womanizing mama's-boy football-player butt all to myself and if I catch you with any Twinkies or beautify queens or anyone else, you'd better run fast because I will hunt you down. ~ K.A. Tucker

I was one of seven, and we took a lot of road trips - long road trips. And this was before iPhones and iPads and DVD players in cars. I remember how novel it was when I got my own Walkman so I could listen to music. ~ Amy Adams

Barney Kessel is definitely the best guitar player in this world, or any other world. ~ George Harrison

Namely the manager will assess what he believes a player is worth and he will discuss that with the board and then we will go after that target. If we can achieve it at that target, great, but if we can't we will have to move on to the next player. ~ David Gill

Far more people make a living as professional chess players today than ever before. Thanks partly to the availability of computer programs and online matches, there has been a mini-boom in chess interest among young people in many countries. ~ Kenneth Rogoff

It's silly to say it about a tennis player, but I'm an unbelievable hero in Germany. And Germany needs heroes more than any place. ~ Boris Becker

Role-playing games are contests in which the players usually cooperate as a group to achieve a common goal rather than compete to eliminate one another from play ... Role games ... bring players together in a mutual effort ... ~ Gary Gygax

Look at the catastrophic record Vishy Anand has against Garry Kasparov. Kasparov managed to beat him almost everywhere they played, even though Vishy Anand has belonged to the absolute top players in the world for fifteen years. This difference cannot be explained purely in chess terms, there must have been some psychology. ~ Vladimir Kramnik

Lahm is the most intelligent player I have ever trained in my career ~ Pep Guardiola

The best players don't win championships. The best team players win championships. ~ John Wooden

I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and my relationship with the piano has been going on for about 38 years. ~ Cyrus Chestnut

I started off with violin, then I started learning guitar, then I went to piano. But I self-taught piano just because I enjoyed it. I've always really enjoyed music. ~ Jesse Spencer

I wouldn't be able to act like Al Pacino or play the piano like Dr. John, But I could probably act better than Dr. John and play the piano better than Al Pacino. ~ Hugh Laurie

Many people don't have the ability to be rich, because they're too lazy or they don't have the desire or the stick-to-itiveness. It's a talent. Some people have a talent for piano. Some people have a talent for raising a family. Some people have a talent for golf. I just happen to have a talent for making money. ~ Donald Trump

I never saw a football player make a tackle with a smile on his face. ~ Woody Hayes

I don't treat the band like I'm above them or that they're a hired hand for me. We've never worked that way. So I'm a team player. I would be very uncomfortable having to do this alone. ~ Tom Petty

You are not an athlete because of what you can do, but because of who you are: a team player, someone who never quits, who strives to be his personal best, and who believes in fair play. ~ Rosemary Rawlins

Players should know that if you can't make the contribution of the winning shot, that your attitude every day when you come to practice, or the positive contribution you make through cheering and keeping up team morale, is just as important in the overall picture. ~ Sue Wicks

the open-world or sandbox or free-roaming game. This genre is superintended by a few general conventions, which include the sensation of being inside a large and disinterestedly functioning world, a main story line that can be abandoned for subordinate story lines (or for no purpose at all), large numbers of supporting characters with whom meaningful interaction is possible, and the ability to customize (or pimp, in the parlance of our time) the game's player-controlled central character. ~ Anonymous

I started piano lessons when I was four; I was being classically trained at the Colburn School. ~ Jacqueline Emerson

What drove me to become the world's greatest bodybuilder is no different from what drives other athletes to become great tennis players or boxers or jockeys. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

The piano may do for love-sick girls who lace themselves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles and slate pencils, but give me the banjo. ~ Mark Twain

There were times I thought I was going to turn to the blues, but then I'd hear better blues players. ~ Stephen Stills

When I look for what I'm going to listen to I go backwards. I'm always going the other way you see. Most people are trying to figure out 'how do I get in the fast lane going that way?'. I'm going in the other direction. I wanna find the oldest thing to do. ~ Eric Clapton

As far as the Jets go, I'm competing to play. It will be a heated competition between Kellen and me, and I'm excited about that; I will do it in a respectful way. I have the utmost respect for him because he's a great player. Whatever's best for team will be best for the team and the coaches will decide. ~ Mark Sanchez

I'm a guitar player. Actually, I think of myself as a songwriter/rhythm-guitar player. ~ Rick Nielsen

The world moves along at such a fast clip that we have little patience when things are slow, whether it's the line at a supermarket or Internet access. We've become intolerant of those things that cannot be accelerated or skipped entirely. I can't speed up the foundation work for a building, nor can I expect to play piano like Glenn Gould just because I want to. ~ Donald J. Trump

You don't have to be the best guitar player, or have the best voice, or even be the best looking person - writing a song that moves people is worth more than all the other nonsense. (Just look at Bob Dylan - he's got almost no vocal range at all, but his songs are deeply moving and iconic.) If I had to offer one piece of advice: Write a song that moves people, and write it from within yourself. Your personal narrative is more engaging and moving than anything else you can imagine in your mind. ~ Ryan Ross

I was an accomplished junior tennis player up to around fourteen years old. At fourteen or fifteen I made the decision to venture off to make my life 100% music. ~ Aaron Zigman

Goals determine what you're going to be. ~ Julius Erving