People From London

"The worshipful fader and first foundeur and enbelissher of ornate eloquence in our Englissh. I mene Maister Geffrey Chaucer."

"Then, never less alone than when alone."

"Those that he loved so long and sees no more, Loved and still loves,—not dead, but gone before,— He gathers round him."

"He that wil wynne he muste laboure and aventure."

"Breathe slumbrous music round me, sweet and slow, To honied phrases set! Into the land of dreams I long to go. Bid me forget!"

"The good are better made by ill, As odours crushed are sweeter still."

"A guardian angel o'er his life presiding, Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing."

"Oh ! She was good as she was fair, None—none on earth above her! As pure in thought as angels are: To know her was to love her."

"Fireside happiness, to hours of ease Blest with that charm, the certainty to please."

"Thou first, best friend that Heav'n assigns below To sooth and sweeten all the cares we know."

"The soul of music slumbers in the shell Till waked and kindled by the master's spell; And feeling hearts, touch them but rightly, pour A thousand melodies unheard before!"

"Al these thynges consydered, there can no man resonably gaynsaye but there was a kyng of thys lande named Arthur. For in al places, Crysten and hethen, he is reputed and taken for one of the nine worthy, and the fyrst of the thre Crysten men."

"Sweet Memory! wafted by thy gentle gale, Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail."

"Go! you may call it madness, folly; You shall not chase my gloom away! There's such a charm in melancholy I would not if I could be gay."

"To vanish in the chinks that Time has made."

"That very law which moulds a tear And bids it trickle from its source,— That law preserves the earth a sphere, And guides the planets in their course."

"Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it: He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it."

"Hence, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence! Thy chain of adamant can bind That little world, the human mind, And sink its noblest powers to impotence."

"Mine be a cot beside the hill; A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook that turns a mill, With many a fall, shall linger near."

"Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears ! The red-cross squadrons madly rage, And mow thro' infancy and age"

"For we Englysshe men ben borne under the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is never stedfaste but ever waverynge, wexynge one season and waneth and dyscreaseth another season. And that comyn Englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a-nother, in so moche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were in a ship in Tamyse for to have sayled over the see into Zelande, and, for lacke of wynde, thei taryed atte Forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them. And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to an hows and axed for mete and specyally he axyd after eggys, and the goode wyf answerde that she could speke no Frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges; and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a-nother sayd that he wolde have eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understod hym wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges, or eyren? Certaynly it is hard to playse every man, by-cause of dyversite and chaunge of langage."

"In opposition, there's not much one can do. One doesn't have the carrot and one doesn't have the stick. One can't promote and one can't fire. And persuasion has its limits."

"We must never give up on this country! Never, never, never, never!"

"I've told you and I've told the Canadian people, Mr. Mulroney, that I had no option."

"I'm not going to allow Mr. Mulroney to sell out our birthright, I'm not going to let Mr. Mulroney destroy a great 120 year old dream called Canada."

"In any democracy, there is always a tug-of-war between policies to achieve equality and policies to promote excellence. I am certain that Canada can achieve both equality and excellence."

"I think the Canadian people have a right to know: Why, when your primary objective was to get unfettered and secure access into the American Market we didn't get it. Why you didn't put clauses in to protect our social programs in this negotiation we'll have on the definition of subsidies where the heavy weight of the American Republic will be put in against us. Why did that not happen? Why also, did we get a situation where we surrendered our Energy policy to the United States, something which they'd been trying to achieve since 1956? Why did we abandon our farmers? Why did we open our Capital Markets so that a Canadian Bank can be bought up and we don't have reciprocal rights into the American Market at all? And why did you remove any ability to control the Canadian ownership of our businesses? These are questions that Canadians deserve to have an answer to, and we have not had an opportunity in six hours to deal with them in a way that would make you come out of your shell!"

"I think the issues happen to be so important for the future of Canada. (spoken over Brian Mulroney's objections) I happen to believe that you've sold us out...once any country yields its economic levers, once a country yields its investments, once a country yields its energy, once a country yields its agriculture, once a country opens itself to a subsidy war with the United States on terms of definition, then the political ability of this country to sustain the influence of the United States, to remain as an independent nation- that is lost forever!"

"I'm not just in this race so you will remember my name at some future date. I'm not here now for some next time. I am not bidding now for your consideration for some vague convention in 1984- perhaps when I've mellowed a bit. My time is now and now is no time for mellow men!"

"You don’t merely give over your creativity to making a film—you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night’s washing-up."

"Being at the centre of a film is a burden one takes on with innocence—the first time. Thereafter, you take it on with trepidation."

"The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities."

"Now, I had heard that he was a little bit intense, right? But he's not, really. He's really the most intense person that has ever lived on Earth. All he is doing is sitting in a chair and I am terrified of him."

"Democracy does not happen by accident."

"Little droplets of poetic essence."

"You don't rely on a great army of people to spoon-feed you. Today's classical-music world is very self-defeating. I love the fact that all these corporations are falling apart. They're sinking millions into acts and getting it wrong. And I know why - it's not about the music, or the audiences. So in many ways this is a very encouraging time."

"We're really not very good about putting music in a social and political context, particularly classical music. It's all sort of above everything. But in South Africa, everything is politicised. You play a piece of classical music out there and you are making a real cultural statement. Or you play with a marimba band and you are saying something else. I think that's the way things should be. The way people write about music makes it seem completely devoid of social context. And audiences drift away as a result."

"The freedom of improvising over a bass line disappeared from music only in the 19th century, and we're still paying for it. There's a culture among classical musicians of being passive, and it stems from following the notes, rather than one's own instincts."

"Classical musicians can sometimes get very hung up on the idea that there's a right way and there's a wrong way. You can see this destroy a lot of players. Jazz musicians have a way of understanding that there are a lot of different ways of doing things. That's what's great about them, they're so friendly. And they are so individualistic - that's why they can accept someone like me."

"My favorite composers tend to be great improvisers as well as great players. It doesn't matter whether they're contemporary or classical."

"The musicians who interest me most are people like Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh, Django Bates. They are not just writing music but performing it, recording it, putting tours together and running their own labels. That is what real musicians are, rather than over-publicised specialists."

"Being a specialist is a 20th century thing, and now rather old fashioned as an idea. I realised early on that you can be the kind of superstar who jets around playing the same programmes all over the world, or you can be the sort of musician who perhaps can be a little influential."

"A lot of musicians are going to have to retrain. It's nonsense to say that traditional classical music is more complex. Contemporary pieces by Harrison Birtwistle are much harder to play than Mozart or Wagner. I know a lot of people don't want to hear that."

"You can give music variation without changing the notes. When you get close to a piece there will inevitable be tinkering. I sometimes wonder if concert pianists expend so much effort and energy finding new ways to interpret that what they really need is some more direct form of self-expression."

"Classical music has struggled to keep up. Unlike any other art form, it keeps on looking backwards all the time. It used to have a real museum culture. Then it went: "Oh my God, what are we going to do? Call for Nigel Kennedy. Quick!" Classical musicians have got to change or die,' she asserts strongly, 'but they just don't know how to. Audiences for classical music have dropped. The old blue rinse audience is dying out, and young people aren't coming in."

"As a professional I practice six or seven hours per day, though it depends on my schedule. That's how it is as a musician. It's only when you reach grade five you take them more serious. Until then I saw it as fun. I used to learn them by play pop tunes on the piano. They have harmonies and broken chords and can be used as building blocks to help you with scales."

"It's a life of planes and trains."

"I don't really go along with this sense that you sometimes pick up - that is, classical music is superior to everything else. I think classical music is a very great music form, but I can also think of other great music forms. And certainly within each field, you have absolute geniuses operating. Over the years, I've tried to bring together different people from different fields, and I do try to put Bach and Beethoven next to other types of musicians."

"I want to move away from complexity. I've done my time as far as virtuosity and piles of notes are concerned. It's what puts me off a lot of contemporary classical music - there are so many notes. In fact, I think I'm moving away from classical music altogether. I'm not sure that in 10 years' time I'll be playing it at all."

"I have absolutely no difficulty in coming out and saying Bach and Beethoven are great composers. You must school young people into great classical music, but you must also allow them to hear other music as well. At one point classical music colonised the high ground. Now we're reaping the backlash for that."