Playing Piano Quotes

When she started to play, Steinway came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano. ~ Bob Hope

PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience. ~ Ambrose Bierce

On television I feel like a man playing piano in a brothel; every now and again he solaces himself by playing 'Abide with Me' in the hope of edifying both the clients and the inmates ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

Someone skipped on the rent and they left behind a huge upright piano, which got moved into our apartment so the other apartment could get rented out. I took to it and started playing. ~ Cy Coleman

I used to play pianos in bars. You know in hotels, you'd see guys playing piano with a snifter? That was me, with a painted-on mustache. I was about 15. ~ Brian McKnight

That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life - conducting, playing piano, and so on - what is fundamental is my being a composer. ~ Morton Gould

Someone was playing piano nearby and the music drifted slowly in and out of my mind like the ebb and flow of ocean surf. i almost recognized the melody, but i could not be sure, it slipped like a cool and silken wind from my grasp. ~ Chaim Potok

The piano is the social instrument par excellence ... drawing-room furniture, a sign of bourgeois prosperity, the most massive of the devices by which the young are tortured in the name of education and the grown-up in the name of entertainment. ~ Jacques Barzun

I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right. ~ Duke Ellington

Everyone asks me if piano had helped me in football. I guess improvisation and creativity helps on the field, but that's a reach. The two skills are just so different. And, by the way, I get more nervous playing piano. ~ Joey Harrington

I love music, singing, and playing piano (though I'm not very good). And I adore musical theater. ~ Aprilynne Pike

The piano is a monster that screams when you touch its teeth. ~ Andres Segovia

I write a lot of more instrumental music than I do vocal music. It's because I come out of a background of playing piano and then playing sax for a number of years. I kind of got into rock backwards. A lot of guys go into rock and then get sick of it and then go into something else. I came the other way, so I've always just had a lot more stuff lying around. ~ Tom Verlaine

I teach in M.F.A. programs now, and I think that's a great way to become a novelist, but I mourn that Pete Dexter and Joan Didion's route is maybe less likely because there are fewer of those jobs. I always liken it to playing piano in some great dive jazz bar. You didn't pick the songs, you played what people asked for, but you got your chops. ~ Jess Walter

I didn't decide to start to playing piano until I was almost 13 years old when my friends and I thought it would be fun to start a band. None of us actually played any instruments so the band never quite got off the ground, BUT it made me go home and ask my parents for piano lessons. That was really the beginning for me. Once I started, it was all I wanted to do. ~ Andrew Hollander

There have always been people making music. On their porches, playing folk songs. Playing piano in quiet salons. You don't have to listen to every MySpace page, so what's the difference? It's just noise that you filter out. ~ Tim Hecker

They teach real young kids and when I was about five my Mom took me to enroll in this thing and they said I could do it. It was definitely my choice, but I would have never thought of it. There's pictures of me playing piano when I'm real, real little, that kind of stuff. ~ Andrew W.K.

I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression, whether it was through music, or acting, or dancing, or painting, or writing. ~ Alanis Morissette

Once you've experienced the warmth of an audience, the achievement of getting your first laugh, and entertaining them, singing or playing piano, it just keeps it all going. ~ Bruce Forsyth

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides. ~ Artur Schnabel

I started writing songs when I was real young, when I was 3 years old. The piano spoke to me - I don't remember when I wasn't playing piano. My second grade talent show was the first time I performed my own thing. I dressed up as Dracula and played a song called 'Monster Rock' that I wrote. And I won. ~ Ian Axel

My activities tend to revolve around crossword puzzles, reading and playing piano and games with my friends. ~ Rashida Jones

I didn't start playing piano until I was 18. ~ George Winston

When I was playing piano, it was like, 'I'm going to write a song using all the white keys.' My music director, who knew my jazz background, suggested I try big-band music, so we spent a year experimenting with it in concert, and the audience reaction was really good. ~ John Tesh

Collaboration is just about finding people who are better than you at certain things and combining your powers. Like, if I'm not the strongest at playing piano, I'll work with someone who's really good at it and we'll combine both our brains to write a song. ~ Charlyne Yi

I just loved classical music, but I also loved playing rock guitar, and I loved playing piano, so it was a natural thing that those things would merge at some point. ~ Trevor Rabin

I love playing piano, too, but I don't sit around doing it all day. Part of that's because I don't have one in my house - I only have synths. ~ Max Tundra

I grew up painting and playing piano so when I was a little kid I thought I was going to be an artist or a painter but my mom had me taking piano lessons for about 10-12 years as a young kid. ~ Mike Shinoda

One of my initial memories of being taken over by music was watching Paul McCartney on TV play a tribute to John Lennon. He was playing piano by himself and singing 'Imagine,' and I remember feeling an anxiety and shortness of breath. ~ Nathaniel Rateliff

My entire life, I've always known that I wanted to be a performer, but I didn't know exactly how, where or when. I never learned or studied the craft, formally. I grew up doing martial arts and playing piano. But, something inside of me always said that I was going to do this, as far back as I can remember. ~ Laz Alonso

I've been playing piano my whole life, but I'd never tried to understand how compositions are made, really. Try to imagine if you'd loved paintings your whole life but had never painted one. My aspiration now is just to understand. ~ Caio Fonseca

Everybody in our family studied a musical instrument. My father was really big on that. Somehow I only took a year or two of piano lessons and I convinced my father to let me take dancing lessons. ~ Madonna Ciccone

I was working at eBay, so I would just troll the vintage categories, find old amps and what have you. I was buying a fair amount of stuff and playing with it and then selling it back. ~ Bill Orcutt

When you're playing jazz, you have to somehow overcome that feeling of being intimidated because your aim is to portray that freedom in what you're playing. ~ Buddy DeFranco

Last night I dreamed of the "happy hunting ground." I passed through a place of bones that looked human, but weren't--the skulls were wrong. Then I came to a place where the days were the best of every season, the sweetest air and water in spring, then the dry heat where deer make dust in the road, the fog of fall with good leaves. And you could shoot without a gun, never kill, but the rabbits would do a little dance, all as if it were a game, and they were playing it too. Then winter came with heavy powder-snow, and big deer, horses, goats and buffaloes--all white--snorted, tossed their heads, and I lay down with my Army blanket, made my bed in the snow, then dreamed within the dream. I dreamed I was at Fleety's, and she told me the bones were poor people killed by bandits, and she took me back to the place, and under a huge rock where no light should have shown, a cave almost, was a dogwood tree. It glowed the kind of red those trees get at sundown, the buds were purple in that weird light, and a madman came out with an axe and chopped at the skulls, trying to make them human-looking. Then I went back to the other side of both dreams. --from a letter to his mother, Helen Pancake, where he describes a dream that seems to encapsulate the play between violence and gentleness in his life. ~ Breece D'J Pancake

When I was in Birmingham I used to go to a place called Redwood Field. I used to get there for a two o'clock game. Where can you make this kind of money playing sports? It was just a pleasure to go out and enjoy myself and get paid for it. ~ Willie Mays

I thought I knew Elton John, but then it was like, "Woah, Elton's a pimp! He's really amazing." And since Billy and Elton are homies, I'm finally getting it - the two piano boys. ~ Mac DeMarco

When I was thirteen I spent a lot of time pretending to like dance music because everyone at my school seemed to love it. If only I'd known it was OK to have different tastes to others and that one day my mind would be blown open by an older man who would introduce me to The Smiths, The Cure, Buzzcocks, Talking Heads and almost every other band I adore to this day. I also wish I'd been reassured that one day, yes, a boy would actually fancy me in spite and potentially, deliberately, FOR my zero boob/skinny legs combo. But mainly I wish I'd listened to my mother when she said learning to play the piano might come in handy in the future and would actually be something I would thank her for forcing me to do. Every Wednesday we would drive to Mrs Batten's house listening to The ArchersI, with me in the passenger seat trying desperately to think up excuses for why I hadn't practiced that week. Though it seemed very unlikely at the time, I am thankful for those piano lessons every time I manage to impress a boy by hammering out some Chopin when drunk (swot up, kids!). ~ Alexa Chung

Acting, I love it and I feel that I'm good at it, but the thing that makes me feel most alive is when I'm playing guitar and singing. ~ Taryn Manning

Life is just like the game of poker, you never know what cards you will get. Sitting against the people, you can either win with the king or live on a joker. Many times in life you are forced to play the blind bet, and achieve overwhelming success, with loads of cash in your pocket or you may reach disastrous conclusions, losing everything you have got.
That's the reason I love playing poker. ~ Prerna Varma

They're talking about Kobe and how great it is that he's playing with the team. Well, isn't that what you're supposed to do? Now he's the savior because he's playing that way? He's no god. He does what he's supposed to be doing, which is what we learned in kindergarten. Share the ball and play. And that's what we do better than they do ~ Jack McCallum

If you begin to think you are solely responsible for keeping your loved one alive and safe, you will eventually find yourself playing God. This phase can develop into an unhealthy, codependent relationship. ~ Gail Sheehy

So the ideology was that: use sounds as instruments, as sounds on tape, without the causality. It was no longer a clarinet or a spring or a piano, but a sound with a form, a development, a life of its own. ~ Luc Ferrari

Let the game begin. Enjoyed playing witness? You get to do it again. Ten times over. One crime for every year you kept me inside. ~ Caroline Mitchell

If it doesn't burn a little then what's the point of playing with fire? ~ Bridgett Devoue

Voldemort is playing a very clever game. Declaring himself might have provoked open rebellion. Remaining masked has created confusion, uncertainty, and fear. ~ J.K. Rowling

My love of music comes from as long as I remember. I begged my mum to learn piano for a year when I was 4; she wanted to make sure I was serious, and I wanted to be Chuck Berry when I grew up! We were a very musical family; my mum would play guitar, and her, my dad and aunt would sing and harmonize! ~ Natalia Tena

Right now there is a prime opportunity for all of us to change the rules of the game through e-commerce and shift the balance in favor of entrepreneurs like you. The Internet levels the playing field and gives everyone - be they big or small - a chance. ~ Jack Ma

As actors, we want to choose somebody who has conflicts. I can't be always playing the girl next door. What's the challenge in that? ~ Sonam Kapoor

It's a different feeling; I like touring and playing on the road better, but recording has its good spots. ~ Robbie Merrill

There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late '60s in Cambridge. The ratio of guys to girls at Harvard was four to one, so all of those things were playing in my mind. ~ Bonnie Raitt

I love the music. I'm never, ever tired of playing it. ~ Tom Petty

It's a werewolf movie with Christina Ricci, and it was a chance to work with some good people. But playing yourself is always fairly risky because you gotta watch how you goof on yourself. ~ Scott Baio

I don't mind if the character is a small character, but I would just like her to have a journey in the film. Sometimes the characters are just there as a prop to further the man's story. The great directors I've talked to, I've said listen, I don't mind playing a woman that is a tiny part, but how does the story affect her? What can I play in the end that's different from the beginning? Otherwise, it doesn't make sense, because it's just like being a prop. ~ Jessica Chastain

I didn't feel the kind of joy every day playing drums that I thought you were supposed to feel. ~ Damien Chazelle

Those bellhops in Miami are tip-happy. I ordered a deck of playing cards and the bellboy made fifty-two trips to my room. ~ Henny Youngman

Donald Trump's mother, who said, Donnie! Stop playing Monopoly and get in that barber's chair! Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons

Some days I feel like a piano: kind of short, always in black & white, always expected to produce music. ~ Alber Elbaz

Although I am not averse to wasting a few hours playing computer games, I have never tried my hand at Doom . Judging by sales figures and testimonials, playing the game has to be an infinitely preferable experience to watching this pathetic excuse for a movie. ~ James Berardinelli

I always enjoyed playing around Washington, because we always have a good crowd. I've never had a bad crowd in this vicinity from here [Alexandria], up to Washington and on to right around Baltimore. They've been some good fans. ~ Ralph Stanley

There was a time you saw me once, one afternoon, in the dormitories. There was no one else around, and I was playing this tape, this music. I was sort of dancing with my eyes closed and you saw me.'
' ... yes, I remember that occasion. I still think about it from time to time.'
'That's funny, so do I. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

In brain scans, music lights up the medial prefrontal cortex and triggers a memory that starts playing in your mind. All of a sudden you can see a place, a person, an incident. The strongest responses to music - the ones that elicit vivid memories - cause the greatest activity on brain scans. ~ Jodi Picoult

The sky was always full of birdsong and evening smells, piano music from a window, the stone buildings glowing against the blue, like cream poured over something tart and hot. ~ Olivia Sudjic

AT the slight creaking made by Macmaster in pushing open his door, Tietjens started violently. He was sitting in a smoking-jacket, playing patience engrossedly in a sort of garret bedroom. It had a sloping roof outlined by black oak beams, which cut into squares the cream-coloured patent distemper of the walls. ~ Ford Madox Ford

Giving the kids a programming environment of any sort, whether it's a tool like Squeak or Scratch or Logo to write programs in a childish way - and I mean that in the most generous sense of the word, that is, playing with and building things - is one of the best ways to learn. ~ Nicholas Negroponte

It's true that old actors don't die, their parts get smaller. You're less likely to get the part, many parts, if you're playing people your age as opposed to people who are younger. There are fewer parts around. ~ Albert Finney

10 facts about abusive relationships (what i wish i'd known)

1. it's not always loud. it's not always obvious. the poison doesn't always hit you like a gunshot. sometimes, it seeps in quietly, slowly. sometimes, you don't even know it was ever there until months after.
2. love is not draining. love is not tiring. this is not how it is supposed to be.
3. apologies are like band-aids, when what you really need is stitches– they don't actually fix anything long-term. soon enough, you'll be bleeding again, but they will never give you what you really need.
4. this is not your fault. you did not turn them into this. this is how they are, how they've always been. you can't blame yourself.
5. there will be less good days than bad days but the good days will be so amazing that it will feel like everything is better than it actually is. your mind is playing tricks on itself and your heart is trying to convince itself that it made the right choice.
6. they do not love you. they can not love you. this is not love.
7. you're not wrong for wanting to run, so do it. listen to what your gut is telling you.
8. you will let them come back again and again before you realize that they only change long enough for you to let them in one more time.
9. it's okay to be selfish and leave. there is never any crime in putting yourself first. when they tell you otherwise, don't believe them. don't let them tear you down. they want to knock you off your ~ Catarine Hancock

The best game to play, he thought, is the game you don't realize you are playing. ~ John Katzenbach

I'd been traveling in Asia long enough to know that monkeys there are nothing like their trombone-playing, tambourine-banging cousins I'd seen on TV as a kid.

Free-living Asian primates possess a characteristic I found shocking and confusing the first time I saw it: self-respect. If you make the mistake of holding the gaze of a street monkey in India, Nepal, or Malaysia, you'll find you're facing a belligerently intelligent creature whose expression says, with a Robert DeNiro–like scowl, "What the hell are you looking at? You wanna piece of me?"

Forget about putting one of these guys in a little red vest. ~ Christopher Ryan