262 quotes found
"He once told a reporter he wanted his obituary to be short - "just make it born in Russia, first lesson at 3, debut at 7, debut in America in 1917"."
"My two favorite dishes. I never get enough. Of course, both must be the best."
"I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven."
"If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it."
"There is no top. There are always further heights to reach."
"I have discovered three things which know no geographical borders - classical music, American jazz, and applause as the sign of the public's favor."
"Can you appreciate music without playing it? Yes, you can. You can appreciate baseball without playing it. Many people attend a football game merely for the crowd, the excitement, the color."
"No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other."
"Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic. Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself, and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me."
"For almost a century, Jascha Heifetz was the performer all others wished to emulate, a genius whose technique and musicianship earned him accolades as "the perfect violinist"."
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don't give a darn. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
"Ever'body might be just one big soul, Well it looks that a-way to me. Everywhere that you look, in the day or night, That's where I'm a-gonna be, Ma, That's where I'm a-gonna be.Wherever little children are hungry and cry, Wherever people ain't free. Wherever men are fightin' for their rights, That's where I'm a-gonna be, Ma. That's where I'm a-gonna be."
"One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple By the Relief Office I saw my people — As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me."
"All you can write is what you see."
"THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS."
"I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes I slept on the ground in the light of the moon On the edge of the city you'll see us and then We come with the dust and we go with the wind"
"I'm blowing, and just as wild and whirling as you are, and lots of times I've been picked up, throwed down, and picked up; but my eyes has been my camera taking pictures of the world and my songs has been my messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls..."
"I'm gonna tell all you fascists, you may be surprised People all over this world are getting organized You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose Race hatred cannot stop us, this one thing I know Poll tax and Jim Crow and greed have got to go You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose ... People of every color marching side by side Marching across these fields where a million fascists died You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose ... I'm going into this battle, take my union gun Gonna end this world of slavery before this war is won You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose"
"I have hoped as many hopes and dreamed so many dreams, seen them swept aside by weather, and blown away by men, washed away in my own mistakes, that — I use to wonder if it wouldn't be better just to haul off and quit hoping. Just protect my own inner brain, my own mind and heart, by drawing it up into a hard knot, and not having any more hopes or dreams at all. Pull in my feelings, and call back all of my sentiments — and not let any earthly event move me in either direction, either cause me to hate, to fear, to love, to care, to take sides, to argue the matter at all — and, yet … there are certain good times, and pleasures that I never can forget, no matter how much I want to, because the pleasures, and the displeasures, the good times and the bad, are really all there is to me. And these pleasures that you cannot ever forget are the yeast that always starts working in your mind again, and it gets in your thoughts again, and in your eyes again, and then, all at once, no matter what has happened to you, you are building a brand new world again, based and built on the mistakes, the wreck, the hard luck and trouble of the old one."
"No matter how bad the wicked world has hurt you, in the long run, there is something gained, and it is all for the best … The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine, and any song that says, the pleasures I have seen in all of my trouble, are the things I never can get — don't worry — the human race will sing this way as long as there is a human to race. The human race is a pretty old place."
"Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew."
"Okemah was one of the singiest, square dancingest, drinkingest, yellingest, preachingest, walkingest, talkingest, laughingest, cryingest, shootingest, fist fightingest, bleedingest, gamblingest, gun, club and razor carryingest of our ranch towns and farm towns, because it blossomed out into one of our first Oil Boom Towns."
"I ain't a communist necessarily, but I been in the red all my life."
"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. … I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow."
"This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land is made for you and me."
"As I go walking this ribbon of highway I see above me the endless skyway And all around me the wind keeps saying: This land is made for you and me."
"When the sun came shining as I was strolling, And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, As the fog was lifting a voice come chanting: This land was made for you and me."
"Nobody living can ever stop me As I go walking my freedom highway Nobody living can make me turn back This land was made for you and me."
"This Land is My Land (1993), a picture book written and illustrated by the Canadian Cree artist George Littlechild, ... refers to Woody Guthrie's Depression-era song, "This Land Is Your Land," which is far from an unproblematic expression of patriotic love for country but (especially in its seldom-sung fourth and sixth verses) ironizes the line "This land was made for you and me" by pointing to distinctions between those who have access to the bounty of the land and those who do not. Through his intertextual reference to Woody Guthrie's song, Littlechild acknowledges traditions of resistance in white culture, even as he draws attention to the effects of colonization upon Native Americans."
"I'm just a lonesome traveler, The Great Historical Bum. Highly educated from history I have come. I built the Rock of Ages, 'twas in the Year of One And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done. I worked in the Garden of Eden, that was the year of two, Joined the apple pickers union, I always paid my due; I'm the man that signed the contract to raise the rising sun, And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done"
"I'd better quit my talking, 'cause I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go, The people are building a peaceful world, and when the job is done That'll be the biggest thing that man has ever done."
"I better quit my talking now; I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go, I'm older than your old folks, and I'm younger than the young, And I'm about the biggest thing that man has ever done."
"As I drove across the New Mexico Painted Desert, I found myself singing softly, "This land is your land, this land is my land...," the Woody Guthrie alternative anthem that was enjoying a revived popularity. It made me think, no, this is not your land. I was driving through the Navajo Nation as a guest, not an owner. I wondered how the Navajos or other Indians would feel about that song."
"[Guthrie's songs] made my head spin[,] made me want to gasp. ... He was so poetic and tough and rhythmic. ... The songs themselves, his repertoire, were really beyond category. They had the infinite sweep of humanity in them. ... For me it was an epiphany... I could sing all these songs, every single one of them and they were all that I wanted to sing. It was like I had been in the dark and someone had turned on the main switch of a lightning conductor."
"Guthrie, he had a particular sound. And besides that, he said something to go along with his sound. That was highly unusual to my ears. He was a radical, his songs had a radical slant. I thought, "Ooh", you know, like... "That's what I want to sing. I want to sing that." I couldn't believe that I'd never heard of this man. You could listen to his songs, and actually learn how to live."
"Woody Guthrie was what folks who don't believe in anything would call an anomaly. Admittedly, the intersection of space and time at the corner of July 14, 1912, and Okemah, Oklahoma, was a long shot to produce anything like a national treasure. Woody was born in one of the most desolate places in America, just in time to come of age in the worst period in our history. … He became the living embodiment of everything a people's revolution is supposed to be about: that working people have dignity, intelligence and value above and beyond the market's demand for their labor. … For me personally, Woody is my hero of heroes and the only person on earth that I will go to my grave regretting that I never met."
"Of course I remember when I was a little kid, I started writing my songs, my dad took me aside one time, and said "Arlo, you know if you can't be great, it's better to belong." I'm still thinking about that."
"Now they sing out his praises on every distant shore, But so few remember what he was fightin' for. Oh why sing the songs and forget about the aim, He wrote them for a reason, why not sing them for the same? And now he's bound for a glory all his own, And now he's bound for glory."
"I remember the night he wrote the song "Tom Joad." He said, "Pete, do you know where I can get a typewriter?" I said, "I'm staying with someone who has one." "Well, I got to write a ballad," he said. "I don't usually write ballads to order, but Victor wants me to do a whole album of Dust Bowl songs, and they say they want one about Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath." … Woody had a half-gallon jug of wine with him, sat down and started typing away. He would stand up every few seconds and test out a verse on his guitar and sit down and type some more. About one o'clock my friend and I got so sleepy we couldn't stay awake. In the morning we found Woody curled up on the floor under the table; the half gallon of wine was almost empty and the completed ballad was sitting near the typewriter. And it is one of his masterpieces."
"We must look beyond the songs to find the full importance of Woody Guthrie. As a song-maker, he has earned the stature he deserves. But his reputation as a writer, poet and philosopher is still underground and must he brought into the light. When his songs, poems, and essays are studied in our American literature classes, this omission may be righted."
"Woody is just Woody. Thousands of people do not know he has any other name. He is just a voice and a guitar. He sings the songs of a people and I suspect that he is, in a way, that people. Harsh voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. But there is something more important for those who will listen. There is the will of the people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit."
"The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret."
"Take my wife - please!"
"Business was so bad the other night the orchestra was playing "Tea for One.""
"My first Hollywood picture wasn't released, it escaped."
"I was so ugly when I was born, the doctor slapped my mother,"
"I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back."
"My wife will buy anything marked down. Last year she bought an escalator."
"We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops."
"My wife told me the car wasn't running well. There was water in the carburetor. I asked where the car was, and she told me it was in the lake."
"My wife and I went to a hotel where we got a waterbed. My wife called it the Dead Sea."
"My wife is on a new diet. Coconuts and bananas. She hasn't lost weight, but can she climb a tree."
"Mugger: Your money or your life."
"Mugger: Look bud. I said, your money or your life."
"Jack: I'm thinking it over!"
"Bob Crosby: That's like keeping the smog and throwing away Los Angeles."
"Don Wilson: I don't think you know how much it means to me to do the commercial. After all I'm not a funny man. I can't sing or dance. I don't lead a band. What are you paying me for?"
"Jack: Don, you're hanging yourself."
"Jack: I believe in being honest with myself. If there's one thing I hate it's when a comedian is great and won't admit it. I've never met one like that, but if I did, I'd hate them."
"Jack: When another comedian has a lousy show, I'm the first one to admit it."
"Jack: When they laugh at one of my jokes... it just gets me right here. [Puts hand on heart]"
"Rochester: Yes, that's the spot all right. You almost had a heart attack when they laughed at Bob Hope."
"Liberace: What do we have for dinner?"
"Cook: We have some breast of flamingo and gazelle steaks."
"Jack: Breast of flamingo and gazelle steaks?"
"Liberace: Would you like to stay for dinner, Jack?"
"Jack: Well, only if you have enough. I'd hate for you to run out to the zoo just for me."
"Marilyn Monroe: What about the difference in our ages?"
"Jack: Oh, it's not that big a difference. You're twenty-five and I'm thirty-nine."
"Marilyn Monroe: I know, Jack. But what about twenty-five years from now when I'm fifty and you're thirty-nine?"
"Jack: Gee, I never thought of that."
"Jack: I can't understand it. On your show you always win."
"Perry Mason: Maybe my writers are better than yours."
"Jack: What do you think of this card I wrote for Don? "To Don from Jacky, Oh golly, oh shucks. I hope that you like it, It cost forty bucks."
"Rochester: It would've been hard to rhyme a dollar ninety-eight."
"Jack Benny: We're a little late, so good night, folks."
"Jack Benny: Where's that big glass star I told you to pack away last Christmas?"
"Rochester: You mean that shiny one with the three points on it?"
"Jack Benny: That star has five points."
"Rochester: Well, it went down two points this last year."
"Thug: This is a stickup! Now come on. Your money or your life."
"Thug: [repeating] Look, bud, I said 'Your money or your life.'"
"Jack Benny: I'm thinking I'm thinking!"
"Thug: You're gonna give us $10,000, or we're gonna break both your legs."
"Jack Benny: Does it have to be both?"
"Jack: Hey, wait a minute. What kind of make up is this?"
"Rochester: Well, you said you wanted something to make you look nice and tanned."
"Jack: I know, but peanut butter?"
"Jack: I want to look tanned, not lumpy."
"Rochester: [checking his equipment] Shaving cream, brush, razor, smelling salts."
"Jack: Smell?... What do I want with smelling salts?"
"Rochester: That's for me. I can't stand the sight of blood."
"Rochester: Oh oh."
"Jack: What's the matter?"
"Rochester: I think I cut you."
"Jack: What do you mean, you think? Can't you tell?"
"Rochester: It would help if you bleed a little."
"Bob Hope: [on being on a CBS show] I feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor at a P.T.A. meeting."
"Bob Hope: By the way, this is where Bing did his last show and I think they've done very nicely. They've gotten most of it out of the curtains."
"Bob Hope: [finding some coins tied with string in Jack's trousers] When you ask this kid for a loan, and he says his money is tied up, he isn't kidding. This is an obstacle course for pickpockets."
"Bob: Welcome to the Lucky Strike Program. In just a few minutes, you'll see our star, Gypsy Rose Benny."
"Jack: [poking his head through the stage curtains] Bob, will you please give me my pants back?"
"Bob Hope: Put your head back through there, or I'll start handing out baseballs to the audience."
"Don Wilson: [Poking his head through the curtains] Bob, Bob, quick, give me Jack's pants!"
"Bob Hope: Why do you want Jack's pants?"
"Don Wilson: Because I had to give him mine."
"Hope: You mean, Jack's actually wearing your pants?"
"Jack: [out of shot] Darn right I am."
"Bob: This is rather strange for me, I'm on the major network. [mouths ABC]"
"Bob: [about Bing Crosby] He's up in Nevada looking over Boulder Dam - his piggy bank is filled. He's so loaded, you know, he uses Howard Hughes for a bell boy."
"Jack: These last 2 miles were rugged, weren't they?"
"Clyde: I knew as soon as we got off the freeway, we'd run into trouble."
"Jack: It's really dangerous, here in the jungle."
"Clyde: You're telling me. What about those first three nights, we had to light fires to keep the animals away."
"Jack: Yeah, then we ran out of water. For three weeks we couldn't even take a bath."
"Clyde: Then the animals lit fires to keep us away."
"Jack: [Pointing to the tiger] He must have gone to a veterinarian in Denmark."
"Clyde: I wondered why he had his hand on his hip when I shot him."
"Jack: What kind of tiger is that - Siberian or Bengal?"
"Clyde: General Electric."
"Jack: I'm scared, I'm frightened."
"'Clyde:' Frightened. Why, you yellow-belly. Do you want to live forever?"
"Jack: No, I just want to reach 40."
"Clyde: Oh, we're not going to make that trip again, oh no."
"Jack: [pointing a pistol at Bob's trousers] I'm going to blow your brains out."
"Bob Hope: Let's not do any jokes we didn't plan on, eh."
"For a man who was the undisputed master of comedy timing, you'd have to say that this was the only time when Jack Benny's timing was all wrong. He left us much too soon. He was stingy to the end. He only gave us eighty years and it wasn't enough."
"Throughout Jack's violin solo at the Hollywood Bowl, the audience was glued to their seats. That was the only way he could get them to sit down."
"I remember when I was eight, my friends thought it was a little bit unusual that I was going off to Europe or to Asia, and playing concerts. And they would go to Tower (Records) and see my CD out. So that was a little different! But, I guess they've gotten used to it now, and really could not care less," she asserted. "It's nice because most of my friends are not musicians, and it keeps me grounded."
"I had this very interesting experience when I was about 13. I went to Finland and it was dead in the middle of winter. It was freezing cold. There was so much snow and I went to Ainola, which is Sibelius' house. It was completely isolated -- just snow and forest, trees and the lake, completely beautiful but very quiet. And very serene. And I thought, well, this is where he was composing his stuff. And his great symphonies and the violin concerto, this is where it basically came from. I also got this little handbook about Ainola and there's a part that says that Sibelius wouldn't allow running water in his house because it disturbed him and his thought processes. So his daughters had to go out to the well which was half a mile away and then bring back water. So I thought, "Wow!" This person was really that much into control and silence. So you go and look at the concerto after that and the way it starts in the beginning: very shimmery. Very beautiful. But in a way it is isolated, and you feel kind of lonely when you're playing that. And gradually of course it builds up into this great big climax when every single orchestra-like instrument known to mankind is clashing and you're trying to break out there and you're trying to play your heart out. But really it did help me realize what he is like."
"Now this is very funny because my brother's name is Michael Chang, I go in for interviews or just talk to people and they say, "so what does your brother do?" I say he plays tennis and they automatically assume that he is Michael Chang, the tennis player, and I don't say anything."
"I hate analyzing stuff. I do the bare minimum. When it comes to interpretation, I just play it and go from there. I think emotion is everything. When you get the notes, you've just scratched the surface. The best things happen spontaneously, on stage. I'm doing three concerts here; I guarantee that none of them will be the same. We're not machines."
"There are certain moments in performance when I'm hand-in-glove with a conductor and feel I can take risks and try something completely different from what we did in rehearsal. Sometimes we pull it off, and it's magical. Other times you try to get creative, the support isn't there, and you think, oh well, maybe next time."
"I've worked with a lot of living composers recently. It drives me nuts, though, that they like to change things at the last minute. For example, two years ago I played a piece that had been completed only the day before, in front of thousands of people in a huge stadium in Taejon, South Korea."
"Everything in my life is planned. It adds stability, but it makes me yearn for something that's not planned, that's spontaneous."
"I try not to take my life for granted. I have friends who have tendinitis. That would kill me. A short break from the violin is fine, but if I don't touch it for three or four days, my fingers start to feel funny."
"The ultimate high for me is being onstage in front of an audience. Nothing else can compare."
"I've always ranked the Brahms as the Mount Everest of all concertos -- and the Beethoven, of course."
"I like Lenny Kravitz, I like Pink, and for forever and ever I've thought that Whitney Houston has an amazing voice. I really love great voices."
"(about concerts)"I love the adrenaline rush you get from having a live audience in front of you. There's nothing like performing live. I like to categorize classical music as one of those really beautiful, glamorous gems from the old era. The men are in tails onstage, the women are in beautiful dresses and the soloist comes out in a gorgeous evening gown. I really, really love that old-school glamour.For me, concert days are always exciting. It doesn't matter if I give 100 concerts or 150 concerts that season. Every concert is magical. Every concert has a sparkle to it. The challenge is to keep myself fresh and to give a spontaneous performance every single night while maturing and growing as a musician every day. The whole art form of being onstage is so mysterious and magical, it fascinates me. ""
"(about her beginnings) "People assume I always wanted to be a violinist. It was actually just one of many other hobbies that I had. I had very enthusiastic parents. They gave me swimming lessons and horseback riding and gymnastics and ballet. My mom put me on the piano when I was about 3i. I asked for the violin when I was 4 because I wanted something that was smaller and more portable. I auditioned for the Juilliard School when I was about 6. During the week, I went to a regular school in Philadelphia so I could be with kids my own age." and "I started my career when I was 8 with two debuts in New York and Philadelphia, and then I started recording when I was 9. When you're so young, you don't realize the impact of a New York Philharmonic debut. You're told to do something and you go out and do it and you don't ask too many questions. I think the questions come later when you're in your teens. By the time I was 14, I was spending probably half the year in Europe. So I was out of school a lot. I did most of my homework by e-mail or fax. We made it work because my professors were incredible.""
"(about her concert in North Korea) "The concert was full of government officials. Every single last seat. It was invitation only, but it was an unbelievable experience. Frightening and exhilarating at the same time. And I just thought about how lucky I am. I am so fortunate to be a musician, and at that moment, I genuinely felt that music is the one and only universal language.""
"Bach is, for me, the touchstone that keeps my playing honest. Keeping the intonation pure in double stops, bringing out the various voices where the phrasing requires it, crossing the strings so that there are not inadvertent accents, presenting the structure in such a way that it's clear to the listener without being pedantic - one can't fake things in Bach, and if one gets all of them to work, the music sings in the most wonderful way."
"Interpretation is as improvisation as improvising from silence is. It is just a different way of looking at it. When you improvise form interpretation you have certain dramatic ideas, you have a certain structure. But you know that everything that is in that is relative and flexible. Even pitch can be a matter of interpretation. Rhythm is relative."
"It is not like we have a piece written out that we improvise on. We know where we are going but we don’t know how we are going to get there."
"What do I really want to do, and what will help me continue to be creative, and what will lead me towards being the artist that I want to be in the end."
"I’m kind of at the point where I’m doing the second of those things and surprised by what I have done. And it is not necessarily a big master plan, but I look at the number of recordings I’ve made and I’m kind of shocked."
"Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighbourhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her mistake made clear to her, the antisemitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew" [Yehudi]."
"This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them."
"Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to 'retire' in this way. I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice?"
"Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous."
"The violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency - half tiger, half poet."
"To play great music, you must keep your eyes on a distant star."
"I can only think of music as something inherent in every human being - a birthright. Music coordinates mind, body and spirit."
"The violinist must possess the poet's gift of piercing the protective hide which grows on propagandists, stockbrokers and slave traders, to penetrate the deeper truth which lies within."
"I would hate to think I am not an amateur. An amateur is one who loves what he is doing. Very often, I'm afraid, the professional hates what he is doing. So, I'd rather be an amateur."
"We embark unhesitatingly on the path, in a direction that is absolutely right and urgent, supported by everyone, in the knowledge that this path is but a learning process... We have to keep on learning, creating, applying, by-passing, touching upon, refining and clarifying a number of notions and details that need to be improvised and applied and which, thank God, we cannot foresee. The only rigidity lies in our will, our conviction that we are on the right road and that our initiatives are most pressing."
"Peace may sound simple — one beautiful word — but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal."
"The art of creation lies in the gift of perceiving the particular and generalizing it, thus creating the particular again. It is therefore a powerful transforming force and a generator of creative solutions in relation to a given problem. It is the currency of human exchanges, which enables the sharing of states of the soul and conscience, and the discovery of new fields of experience."
"What guides us is children's response, their joy in learning to dance, to sing, to live together. It should be a guide to the whole world."
"Each human being has the eternal duty of transforming what is hard and brutal into a subtle and tender offering, what is crude into refinement, what is ugly into beauty, ignorance into knowledge, confrontation into collaboration, thereby rediscovering the child’s dream of a creative reality incessantly renewed by death, the servant of life, and by life the servant of love."
"Homeopathy is the safest and more reliable approach to ailments and has withstood the assaults of established medical practice for over 100 years."
"There were other gurus and other lessons, but not until I met Iyengar did I take up the study regularly. My first meeting with him was like the casting of a spell. We made each other's acquaintance in Mumbai. He appeared in my rooms one morning and straightaway made it clear that the "audition" to follow was mine as much as his. For all my celebrity, to him I was just another Western body knotted through and through."
"First and foremost, yoga made its contribution to my quest to understand consciously the mechanics of violin playing, a quest which by 1951 had long been one of the themes of my life. All influences pointed to less tension, more effective application of energy, the breaking down of resistance in every joint, the coordination of all motions into one motion; and illustrated the profound truth that strength comes not from strength but from the subtle comprehension of process, proportion and balance."
"We in the Western world have grown to understand matter as imprisoned light, and light as liberated matter, yet this has had no influence on our spiritual thought. In practical terms it only led to the creation of the atom bomb."
"When I was a boy no one seemed to ask where the energies come from. Land, oil, coal, air seemed inexhaustible. Now we are realizing how our very life depends upon restoring not only our balance with nature, but also that balance within ourselves. We are depleting our reserves of spirit, health, courage and faith at an alarming rate. The quiet practice of yoga is, in its humble yet effective way, an antidote."
"That India should offer me at once a homeland and a new-found land with lasting power to astonish seemed only right, for it is precisely the reconciling of contradictions Within an all-accepting unity that is the country's genius and its abiding appeal to me. India, I feel, has softened my Talmudical adjudications between right and wrong, upheld innocent acceptance of the lovely things of life, given me much that was new yet welcome, understandable, waiting to experienced."
"Despite predisposition in India's favor, I have to acknowledge that Indian music took me by surprise. I knew neither its nature nor its richness, but here, if anywhere, I found vindication of my conviction that India was the original source."
"I've had marvelous and incredible luck, and devoted parents, sisters, friends, and teachers. What more can one ask? These things contribute enormously. Probably the major part of one's success is due to these factors."
"Why is compassion not part of our established curriculum, an inherent part of our education? Compassion, awe, wonder, curiosity, exaltation, humility — these are the very foundation of any real civilization, no longer the prerogatives, the preserves of any one church, but belonging to everyone, every child in every home, in every school."
"Working with no other orchestra gave me as much satisfaction as my work, as soloist and conductor, with the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra."
"It was a true inspiration to spend as much time with them [Sinfonia Varsovia] as possible, to enjoy the deep satisfaction I derive from our music-making together."
"Many people do not realise that it takes considerably more art and skill to play the violin lightly than it does to play it loudly. Indeed, the best possible training for young violinists is learning to play pianissimo and without pressure."
"In playing Beethoven the violinist should be a medium. There is little that is personal or that can be reduced to ingratiating sounds, pleasing slides and so on. Everything is dictated by the significance, the weight, structure and direction of the notes and passages themselves."
"It is absolutely vital to hold it as lightly as possible - rather as one might pick up a newborn bird."
"One should feel in the right arm the vibration of the bow hair on the strings. [...] The moment tension or hardness enters into the hand then of course the vibrations will not be felt- they cannot penetrate."
"Learning an imposed method seemed not in my nature"
"What fascinated my imagination was the tremendous feat, which I felt I should be perfectly able to accomplish."
"[At age 7] In eight hours of concentrated practice between my twice-weekly lessons, I memorized the A major and played it for Persinger."
"To be an outstanding musician, you have to be very attentive to the smallest detail and willing to have infinite patience in the pursuit of your ideal."
"Even at the risk of losing all the golden eggs of the future, I had to find out what made the goose lay those eggs"
"Undoubtedly I had lost time in balking at scales, arpeggios. [...] There is an advantage in establishing the top story of one's constructions first: One has seen the heights; one knows what one is building for and what must be sustained."
"The best teacher is the one who himself has had to struggle to learn."
"I imagine that whatever contribution I can make to teaching derives from having had to rethink and re-create my technique."
"The teacher offers guidance here and there, but the primary factor, the driving force, in your relationship and work together is the student's own commitment and desire to learn. Teaching is like sailing: The wind and the sails give the boat its motion. Your role (as a teacher) is to steer and guide."
"The idea that a pupil is a passive recipient, a container waiting to be filled by the teacher's knowledge and instruction - all this is nonsense. Teaching is a living relationship, of give and take, of mutual learning."
"There comes a time when the student turns his back on the teacher. His playing cannot have the necessary security, autonomy, self-faith, or communicative power until he believes his interpretation is his own."
"This is the best and ultimate purpose of conducting: Not only to lead (the musicians) and keep them together, not only to make their performance easier and simpler, but also to guide them so that they can play as they have always longed to play."
"He was one of the celebrities like author Aldous Huxley who was taught by B. K. S. Iyengar the Iyengar brand of yoga."
"There is... no definitive interpretation for him but the search for repose, for a place where music, far from any pretension, vibrates naturally, where it can breathe more than show off."
"Yehudi Menuhin could play difficult violin pieces by Mozart, Beethoven and Bach at age 7. He played in Carnegie Hall at 11. He was 12 when he made his first record. At 13, he'd played in the finest concert halls in Berlin, London, and Paris. At 19, he embarked on his first world tour – 110 concerts, 63 cities and 13 countries. Yet at 19 he couldn't play a simple A major scale or a basic three-octave arpeggio. And he'd never figured out music theory."
"For young Menuhin, each piece was a goal. Once he heard something he wanted to play, he'd focus his mind on it. He practiced at least four hours daily. When he could play one work perfectly, he simply moved on to the next."
"It wasn't enough to be a great soloist - Menuhin wanted to be a great leader in music. He wanted to teach, open a music school and conduct the world's best musical groups. Menuhin knew that if he wanted to teach a class or lead an orchestra, he couldn't rest on his past achievements. He needed to understand the steps he'd taken to play so well."
"So back to school he went. To nail down the way his fingers moved, Menuhin learned every scale imaginable. He learned to play them at every speed. He searched the library for books on violin technique. He went to the best teachers and asked them to explain things the books didn't say. He asked gymnasts and dancers for advice on the most precise way to move his bowing arm. To understand how to control his bowing better, he learned the names of each muscle in the back, upper arms, forearms and fingers. He studied drawings made by Leonardo da Vinci, so he'd know what hands looked like on the inside. Then Menuhin broke his performance down even more. Studying India's exercise system of yoga, he started to understand his breathing as he played."
"In 1942, Menuhin conducted for the first time. In the years that followed, he led the New York Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., among others. He taught students around the world. He established the Gstaad Festival in Switzerland and directed the Bath Festival in England. In 1963, he founded the world-renowned Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke D'Aubernon, England. Menuhin became a British subject in 1985, was knighted in 1987 and became a life peer in 1993."
"Although he seemed almost the embodiment of the classical musician who was lost in the spiritual intensity of his art, he, in fact, devoted his 75-year career to a remarkably wide range of musical, humanitarian and even political activities--building cultural bridges that ranged from defying the political climate during the Cold War to a groundbreaking collaboration with Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar in the 1960s."
"The world has lost a great soul, whose passion was music and humanity."
"Yehudi Menuhin was a major figure in this century – an extraordinary musician and a great humanitarian. [...] His style of playing, particularly in his early years, was a stunning patrician elegance with a very natural musical line, which fitted the style of whatever composition."
"Menuhin worked to raise money for UNESCO and lobbied for racial equality in South Africa. He spoke out against narrow political nationalism in any form, including music. Not only did he create a rage for Indian raga music when he released his East Meets West [sic] recording with Shankar, he chipped away at the barriers between classical music and jazz by improvising with jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli."
"Menuhin felt a close kinship with Stern, who also was born of Russian immigrants."
"Despite the adulation that followed him wherever he went, Menuhin's playing began to lose some of its technical brilliance in the 1950s and entered a slow decline. But Menuhin, who often appeared transfixed when he performed, readily made up for what a Times critic described as "thick-toned, raspy playing" with an increased spiritual intensity in his interpretation."
"He was never just a musician, from very early on he wanted to do other things, to make his music work for humanity."
"His musical career spanned more than seven decades. He made his debut in San Francisco as a child prodigy aged seven and by the age of 13, had performed in London, Paris and Berlin. He went on to develop his talents as a violinist, conductor and teacher, founding the Yehudi Menuhin School, in Surrey, for gifted young musicians in 1963. [...] At the age of 16 the young violinist was conducted by Sir Edward (Elgar) in a now famous recording of the composer's violin concerto, made in 1932."
"As well as campaigning for human rights, Menuhin was a keen yoga practitioner and health food enthusiast, warning against the dangers of white rice, white bread and red meat. He also spoke of the dangers of pollution long before environmentalism became a buzz word."
"Now I know there is a God in heaven."
"Your connections and the relationships you maintain basically guide you through your career and they grow into the music that you hear."
"We didn’t have a lot of money, but my parents asked me if I wanted to play the violin. My older brother plays country music and I was supposed to go into that... A path to classical music usually starts with privilege. There needs to be a certain level of income so you can afford an instrument and private lessons. [Where he grew up] classical music education was exclusively in the cities. Sometimes, you’d have to drive three hours to find a high school orchestra."
"So many superficial aspects of Tár seemed to align with my own personal life. But once I saw it I was no longer concerned, I was offended: I was offended as a woman, I was offended as a conductor, I was offended as a lesbian."
"To have an opportunity to portray a woman in that role and to make her an abuser — for me that was heartbreaking. I think all women and all feminists should be bothered by that kind of depiction because it's not really about women conductors, is it?"
"There are so many men — actual, documented men — this film could have been based on but, instead, it puts a woman in the role but gives her all the attributes of those men. That feels antiwoman. To assume that women will either behave identically to men or become hysterical, crazy, insane is to perpetuate something we’ve already seen on film so many times before."
"[On the slow growth of the number of female conductors] With women, historically, it's been, you know, "You should be happy for what you have. Don’t push people — they’ve done a lot already!" There’s always this sort of patronising approach."
"We could have been programming work by under-represented people for the last 50 years, but the choice was not to. We could have had women on the podium, but the choice was not to."
"[On a perceived orchestra's retreat to conservative stances after the pandemic] I thought classical music institutions would come back with a new approach, new ways of connecting with audiences. Have we seen that? In some ways I see these organisations trying to go back to the way they used to do it. I'm not saying that what we do — the actual music-making — needs to drastically change, but everything around it does. And it can’t just be, ‘Oh we’re going to include a piece by a woman composer, or a person of colour’. It becomes perfunctory rather than celebratory."
"But, fundamentally, I think goodness is very underrated."
"At one time or another the more fortunate among us make three startling discoveries. Discovery number one: Each one of us has, in varying degree, the power to make others feel better or worse. Discovery number two: Making others feel better is much more rewarding than making them feel worse. Discovery number three: Making others feel better generally makes us feel better."
"There are almost as many ways of helping people to feel better as there are human beings."
"Our creative potential has many aspects, but undoubtedly the most important one is to make good use of ourselves and what we are here and now, at each successive moment."
"Let us initiate a change in ourselves, for then, and then only, shall we be able to effect a change in other people. When we change, others change too. And circumstances change in a manner that is almost miraculous. The initial change has to come from inside ourselves."
"Disguised in a thousand forms, hidden under an infinite variety of masks, love starvation is even more rampant than food starvation. It invades all classes and all peoples. It occurs in all climates, on every social and economic level. It seems to occur in all forms of life. Love starvation wears the stony face of the disciplinarian or speaks in the hysterical voice of the zealot. It puts on the unctuous manner of the hypocrite or the ruthlessness of the ambitious power-seeker."
"Love starvation may camouflage itself in physical and mental ills, in delinquency, sometimes in death. In a family, love starvation begets love starvation in one generation after another until a rebel in that family breaks the malevolent chain. If you find yourself in such a family, BE THAT REBEL!"
"In all its manifestations and however it is produced, not-love tends to beget not-love. The energy of love is needed to reconvert not-love into love."
"War is the most terrifying example of energy directed against ourselves, and yet it was a great relief for many people throughout history. War provided them with a legitimate outlet for their aggressive feelings and an escape from their boredom. Even the humblest factory job acquired a glow of righteousness and patriotism. It is sadly significant that the number of suicides always declines during a war. A nuclear war would provide none of the satisfactions of past wars-no marching, no brass bands, no heroism. Like termites fumigated in their nests, we would all be exterminated, on any side of any curtain, by a stupendous gadget paid for by our hard-earned money and of which we were supposed to be proud. This gadget is the most powerful of all man-made transformers of energy."
"For this purpose it is necessary to keep in sharp focus a fact of which often we are not aware: we are at all times a connecting link, one of many links, in a chain reaction of related events. Each of us is the product of many chains: the evolutionary chain, the racial chain, the genetic chain, the environmental chain, and many others. The immense mass of events of which we are alternately the cause and the effect surpasses the human imagination."
"Our task is to find ways in which the energy evoked by negative emotions can be transformed, in a manner compatible with civilized living, into harmless-or better-into positively useful energy. Our purpose, then, is to become expert and voluntary energy transformers instead of involuntary energy victims. Like everything else, this takes practice."
"It is feeling the energy, becoming conscious of it, that permits us to redirect it according to the best of our physical, intellectual, and ethical knowledge."
"How often does pleasure pass us by because we are not ready to accept it! When we are preoccupied or in pain it is hard even to see, let alone pluck, the flowers of pleasure on our way. We may even walk blindly over them. ("Open the Door to Pleasure")"
"True pleasure is inextricably linked with feelings of gratitude, generosity, well-being. So inseparable is pleasure from this climate of good feeling that it is hard to know which comes first, the enjoyment or the good feeling. ("Open the Door to Pleasure")"
"Whether you are nineteen or ninety, whether you weigh one hundred or three hundred pounds, whether you move with ease or difficulty, whether your joints are supple or stiff-no matter. Dance. ("Dance Naked With Music")"
"It is almost as destructive not to respect and love oneself as it is to respect and love only oneself. ("Love Yourself as You Love Your Neighbor")"
"It is harmful to reject a human being; it is harmful to be rejected. When we do not respect or love ourselves we commit both offenses. ("Love Yourself as You Love Your Neighbor")"
"Energy is neither good nor evil. It is a neutral power which can be used well or badly. The art of living is simply the art of using energy in an intelligent and creative way...By daily practice, you can become a CONSCIOUS AND INTELLIGENT DIRECTOR OF ENERGY. (8: "THE ART OF CONVERTING ENERGY")"
"Beauty starvation is almost as widespread as love starvation. Often we do not realize that this is what we are hungry for. In our world of traffic jams and artificial flowers we are so far removed from the pure experiences of our senses that we do not even realize our deprivation. (16: "AS IF FOR THE FIRST TIME, or Five Minutes of Beauty a Day")"
"Choose to see beauty. Watch a puppy's antics. Do not think of how he will look or behave when he is a grown dog. Look at him now, look at him fully, look at him so completely that there is no room in your mind for anything except this puppy, this moment. (16: "AS IF FOR THE FIRST TIME, or Five Minutes of Beauty a Day")"
"It is against our ethical principles as human beings to harm others. But aside from ethics, it is against our self-interest. The neurosis we cultivate in others inevitably rebounds against ourselves. From heavy-handed authority resentment and rebellion will develop. From sexual repression or dissatisfaction, anger, nervous tension and its consequences will arise."
"This is a part of living, part of the interrelatedness of human beings. We cannot live in a world of people and avoid the storms of their disagreeable and painful emotions any more than we can avoid the weather. But we can avoid this feeling of being the target for them. We can even turn the unpleasant encounters to our own good use."
"each of us has a choice. We can passively take our place in the negative chain, accepting the harm to ourselves and passing it on to others. Or we can break the chain and turn the energy of a destructive emotion into a constructive action. Energy is neutral. It is what we do with it that makes it destructive or creative, harmful or healing."
"we must want not to be the target. There is a widespread though subterranean feeling that to be made to suffer to be a victim- is somehow an admirable position on earth and a good ticket to a special place in heaven...If you know that you carry this belief in your own mind, ask yourself this question: When do I do the most good for myself and for others: When I am suffering-Or when I am happy?"
"Although we would not consider ourselves the target of a hurricane or a tidal wave, we often feel we are the victims of meteorological disturbances in the minds of other people. Sometimes it is true; people are trying to hurt us. But most of the time they are merely exploding, and we happen to be nearby-a conveniant substitute for their real target."
"Scientific research is the art of asking the right question in the right way."
"Self-questioning is a first step on the path to self-awareness. And this awareness is a precondition for making the most of our lives. It is our protection against unnecessary mental suffering and physical illness, and our aid in coping with these when they cannot be avoided. Being aware is the way toward finding fulfillment in our relationships with others, of bringing all our store of healthy energy to living and working."
"Often a question, the first one, is not the real question at all but a substitute which our unconscious self has artfully framed to protect our superficial comfort from being disturbed by a deeper, more troubling doubt."
"You alone can change yourself, and when you do, then circumstances and people will both seem and be changed."
"creativity is not the monopoly of the Shakespeares and Einsteins of this world. There is a science of intelligent living, an art of being fully human, in which we all can and ought to be creative. To use our imagination is part of the total art of being. To imagine other people's imagination is part of the art of being with others."
"Imagine what life would be like without imagination! There would be no Michelangelo or Da Vinci, no Edison, no delinquents and no saints, no Mozart, no nuclear power."
"We should train ourselves in the use of imagination when we are well, so that we are ready to use it when we are not."
"Like any other faculty, imagination can be starved and suffocated or stimulated and nourished."
"Infinity and eternity are the limits of imagination. You can project your imagination into the past or into the future; you can destroy an old image that has troubled you or create a new one that will rejoice you."
"this transformation is really the key now, isn’t it, to our living: to be able to transform. (1968)"
"It’s marvelous when you think of words. If you just think of any one word, not just thinking about how it came about in the expression, but just what your mouth does to pronounce that word (1968)"
"focus your mind and respect your body. But mostly love your heart. I think that is where to begin, from there and then it goes out...Love your heart. It really is to love yourself to begin with and help everybody else in doing the same. But the heart being the center. You can focus your mind. You can respect your body. All of that is important. Then if you love your heart, this can be transmitted to other people. I mean you can help anybody that wants to do the same."
"our society can improve only if the next generation is given the chance, through loving and intelligent education, to be better developed than the present one."
"Service or giving is the other side of receiving. Giving and receiving is a full circle: a full circle feels more natural than a half circle."
"Beauty, well, it's one of the greatest, greatest gifts. I feel sorry sometimes because people are so worried and so involved in something that they don't have even five minutes to look at something beautiful. I find beauty almost everywhere."
"There is danger in everything that we do. We are to eat food otherwise we don’t live and sometimes we eat food that is very damaging...Or addicted to food. Oh, yes, addiction to food is unfortunately really grave, also to alcohol or to anything else. But these drugs can be such an extraordinary gift, really. Some, not all drugs. Again, how can we speak about "drugs"? It is like speaking about the human race—each person is different, each drug is different!"
"(How have psychedelics helped or harmed or influenced you?) LAH: I was deeply affected. They gave me a much wider view of the world, as well as a much wider view of our ignorance, and ignorance, according to the Buddha, is our basic difficulty. Psychedelics and the process of aging make that clear to me all the time."
"I discovered that some of the clearest and most practical answers to certain of my questions were being given by my wife in the "Recipes for Living and Loving," which she was composing for the benefit of those who came to her for psychological aid and counsel. Some of her recipes (for example, those for the Transformation of Energy) have found their way, almost unmodified, into my phantasy. Others have been changed and developed to suit the needs of my imaginary society and to fit into its peculiar culture. This literary debt is one which, along with all my other non-literary debts to the author of You Are Not the Target, I am happy to acknowledge."
"When a book is amusing and charming and quite easy to understand we are apt to dismiss it as a lightweight. Don't make this mistake about Laura Huxley. She offers you nothing less than a new life."
"At present...I feel that my works require a modified serial technique, but it is a very unorthodox one, and almost never strictly adhered to throughout a given work. Neither does it destroy all tonal feeling...I do not mean tonality, but I do stress a progressive direction from one "note" center to another...(twelve-tone music) seems to be overly static without providing that experience of forward or backward movement that is an essential part of our musical art."
"I don’t understand any music! I feel it. I want them to feel something! I don’t want them to understand it. If I wanted them to understand exactly what I meant, I can write an essay! I’ve written a lot of speeches and essays and articles and everything else, but I don’t want that! I don’t want a particular thing; I want them to let themselves go and feel something they’ve never felt before. That’s all. That’s what a concert is — not a pleasurable experience; it is an experience of life-changing dimensions!"
"I have one idea about this whole interpretation problem as it relates to orchestral music — too many of our conductors start with old music. What they should do is interpret the music of our time and then go backwards. They would be much better off because if you interpret a contemporary work, where the composer is still alive and have contact with the compositional mind, you will also play older music as looked at from the perspective of the composer, instead of an interpretive kind of idea. I hate the performer that says, “Did you ever hear my Beethoven?” I don’t want to hear his Beethoven! I want to hear Beethoven."
"To me, the wonderful thing about music is a love affair between the performer and the composer, and between the composer and his audience. This love affair is a tripartite thing."
"Too much emphasis is placed upon the technical aspect of contemporary music and not enough on its communicative and aesthetic impact. This is where i strongly disagree with many of my colleagues. I firmly believe that a composer should have all contemporary techniques in his immediate grasp, and must be able to use these as they suit his purposes."