Composer Quotes: Timeless Wisdom and Inspiration from the World's Greate...

"Never look at the trombones. You'll only encourage them"

"Music is the silence between the notes"

"For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiments. Astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever"

Arthur Sullivan, Composer

"It's a blast to watch. It's a lot more interesting live than it is on record. I mean, it really is a theatrical event. It's a sporting event! Cause you never know what's gonna happen"

John Zorn, Composer

"It was very difficult to startle or surprise someone with a particular sound during the family computer era"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

"Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel"

Oscar Levant, Composer

"Wagner is a composer who has beautiful moments but awful quarter hours"

Gioachino Rossini, Composer

"However now we can create a sound that can truly startle someone and in terms of sound effects I think the environment that we are in now has improved dramatically"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

"The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament"

Igor Stravinsky, Composer

"A nation creates music - the composer only arranges it"

Mikhail Glinka, Composer

"The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play"

Richard Strauss, Composer

"And it's very strange, but I think there is something very common - not only in Celtic music - but there is a factor or element in Celtic music that is similar in music that we find in Japan, the United States, Europe, and even China and other Asian countries"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

"One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music"

Stephen Sondheim, Composer

"It's useless to play lullabies for those who cannot sleep"

John Cage, Composer

"There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note"

Gustav Mahler, Composer

"We are all part of a tradition, at least we depend on the past"

Klaus Schulze, Composer

"Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do"

Gian Carlo Menotti, Composer

"I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results"

Johannes Sebastian Bach, Composer

"Style is the dress of thought; a modest dress, Neat, but not gaudy, will true critics please"

Samuel Wesley, Composer

"I believe that there are many interesting projects that are potentially possible for me other than game music, and therefore in my mind there are several things that are being contemplated"

Nobuo Uematsu, Composer

"To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also"

Igor Stravinsky, Composer

"Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune"

Igor Stravinsky, Composer

"A good composer does not imitate; he steals"

Igor Stravinsky, Composer

"Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part"

Claude Debussy, Composer