pianists-from-england

"Wakeman, it turns out, is prog rock’s class clown. Possessed of a sharp and irreverent wit of which the public has only recently been made aware, his skills on the keys are no laughing matter. [...] Often an object of ridicule for his stage garb of silver capes and flowing locks, he is highly respected for his skill and humour."

"Swapping out the fully competent Tony Kaye for keyboard virtuoso Rick Wakeman put Yes on a completely new level."

"It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking In the dark Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops Your heart. You try to scream, but terror takes the sound before You make it You start to freeze as horror looks you right between The eyes You're paralyzed 'Cause this is thriller, thriller night And no one's gonna save you from the beast about to Strike You know it's thriller, thriller night You're fighting for your life inside a killer Thriller tonight."

"The best musician anyone could have in their band and the best friend anyone could have in their life"

"I think there’s always a certain amount of romance on our records, I mean, you know, that’s ‘cause I’m writing some of the songs, I always write about romance"

"Can you hear me calling Out your name? You know that I'm falling And I don't know what to say I'll speak a little louder I'll even shout You know that I'm proud And I can't get the words out Oh, I I want to be with you everywhere."

"That’s the- another thing is, you know, the pressure is on you when you’re doing a solo record, when you come together with, you know, four tried and trusted other musicians you feel like you’ve got a very strong shoulder to lean on that’s not about to collapse under you, you know"

"I think that actually that releases the emotional tension to be honest with you. I always think that, no matter what’s gone on prior to the, you know, treading the boards at night, I think we all kind of leave that behind when we’re on stage and you tend to even put more feeling into the songs I think"

"I’m good at pathos. I write about romantic despair a lot. That’s my thing, but with a positive spin"

"If you wake up and don't want to smile, If it takes just a little while, Open your eyes and look at the day. You'll see things in a different way.Don't stop, thinking about tomorrow, Don't stop, it'll soon be here. It'll be, better than before. Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone."

"I never did believe in miracles, But I've a feeling it's time to try. I never did believe in the ways of magic, But I'm beginning to wonder why."

"We all sensed that perhaps Lindsey would leave first. I mean, the very thought of one band member leaving was catastrophic to us, because we all felt that each one of us was irreplaceable"

"To be honest. That came from my parents. I can’t imagine better advice coming from one’s parents. I try to stick by that rule and to be as good a person as I can"

"Not many bands have had the same longevity; there is life in the old girl yet. It’s about finding new inspiration and enjoyment for each other. As long as we have that we’ll keep going"

"Maybe people want to see us because they think it’s the last chance. We’re a young band at heart; you’d never think we are the age we are. We’re never static. It’s going to be fantastic"

"I am a composer. I am not a songwriter. Because the musical world has been so massively hijacked by big business we tend to see the single pop song as the all-important unit. But there is so much more to music than that, and while I have always taken a wide interest in every sort of music whatever its origins, the wonderful possibilities of extended music, of concertos and symphonies and opera and ballet and film and instrumental music in all its myriad forms - this is what I am interested in and what I both listen to and continually attempt to create."

"With a comedy, you can easily take away the humor. So it’s very important to keep the pacing of it going, and to keep the lighthearted nature of it going. I think in many ways, a comedy is more difficult than drama"

"I only arrived in the world in 1988, by which point you were already seeing many of the great things happen and by the time I started going clubbing it was all about jungle It was great fun, but a hostile environment. It wasn’t a place for a gangly, 6-foot-5-inch, mousy-haired, scarf-wearing twat like myself. More a place go and do shed loads of cocaine and try and start a fight. But I loved the sound system. The culture of taking sound systems around really interested me, and when dubstep broke, that was it."

"I would be spooning my 6'8" boyfriend. I'm the big spoon, obviously. He'll love that I said that."

"...if one could erase the many unsatisfactory associations connected with the word saint, and rid the word "Superman" of its equally unsatisfactory ones, Justin... might with perfect right be called either of these, or both. Indeed, my association with this truly wonderful man showed me that a saint could exist without exhibiting an ultra-devotional temperament, carrying itself almost to a degree of unpleasantness, and a superman could exist likewise, without that arrogant love of power which is so characteristic of the Nietzschean ideal."

"From what seeds does this weed of conventionality grow? From mental laziness, fear- of what others will think; vanity- or the capacity to be hurt by what they will say; and superstition- or the false notion that what the majority think must be right."

"The supermoralist realizes that when he has acquired a virtue or a faculty, be it truthfulness or ecstatic trance- what matter-then is the time to hide it or indulge in it sparingly, or both, as circumstances dictate."

"What we do exist for is principally to guide mankind at large and to give forth such moral, spiritual, and ethical ideas as may be required at a particular time. How is this achieved? Through our chelas who moving in the world and using their discretion, spread such portions of our teaching as they seem wise and as opportunity offers... If they are writers, some of that teaching is set forth in their books; if they are poets, it appears in their poetry; if they are musicians, the spirit of it echoes forth from their music."

"One of our rules is never to do things in an extraordinary way, when they can be done in an ordinary way. What we do after the disciple and the Master have become closely linked is another matter."

"Pain belongs to the illusory things of life; and it is a characteristic of children to like illusions; their very games consist in pretending to be kings or soldiers or what not. Contentedness, on the other hand, is one of the qualities of maturity... Jealousy...is also, of course, a form of childishness."

"Of course, no doubt sensation mongers would much prefer that we miraculously appeared before our prospective pupils and said: ‘I’m your Guru - come and be my disciple.’ But such is not our policy and never will be."

"...in speaking of religion and perfection we must not forget there are certain unreflective persons who imagine that to be perfect means of necessity to be tedious at the same time; they quite fail to realise that dullness is an attribute of imperfection rather than perfection, and that they might with equal lack of rectitude say... that to live in the Nirvana of perpetual bliss would be to live in the tedium of a perpetual hell."

"If we look at the mental bodies of very conventional people we find their outlines hard and rigid, and the bodies themselves small and as it were under - nourished."

"...the Adept, possessing knowledge of Nature and its laws as yet not disclosed to Humanity at large, is able to control natural forces in a way which the ignorant cannot even imagine, let alone follow: indeed, were he to exhibit the manipulation of those forces to the uninitiated (which, however, he never would do) they in their utter incredulity and ignorance would ascribe the whole exhibition to trickery, and pronounce him at best a conjuror, if not a fraud."

"In a word, show people what they cannot understand and immediately they will ascribe it to something they can understand — for that is ever the tendency of the ignorant."

"For the man who writes alone for his friends, and not for his enemies as well, falls short of being a true philosopher, by reason of the fact that all real philosophy has missed its goal unless it brings us Peace."

"Tonight I am going to speak of practically the greatest obstacle to occult Wisdom, spiritual attainment and mystical progress. That obstacle is Conventionality in whatever form it may take, be it in relation to morals or religion. The New Testament writers portrayed the Pharisees as its most typical adherents, and Jesus is reported to have said that the harlots were nearer the kingdom of Heaven than these Pharisees- which, allowing for Oriental hyperbole, is in accordance with fact."

"If some people are not disposed to believe that morals change with the times, then let them look into the book held most sacred by all the peoples of the West, and read how at one time the idea of Justice was ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ Or look further back still and read of King Solomon, said to be the wisest- which surely also implies the most moral - man who ever lived."

"How would the bulk of fastidious Americans with their legislation against this, that and the other, regard a man who had seven hundred wives and two hundred concubines? Would they consider him the wisest man on this whole continent? I should like to know how even he could find the time to cultivate wisdom, under the stress of such extensive erotic obligations."

"And this superconsciousness of necessity embraces a continual sensation of unconditional bliss and unconditional Love, conjoined with which is a supreme wisdom and power."

"True it is that the so-called enlightenment of our twentieth century civilisation seeks to negate or explain away the unusual powers of these men, but deeper thinkers who have taken the trouble to penetrate behind the veil of superficial knowledge are coming to the conclusion that the old truism " where there is smoke there must also be fire " is applicable to the case in point, and that this negation, and explaining away on the part of so-called civilisation is not the result of real knowledge, but of ignorance instead."

"Let us then try to imagine a human being, devoid of the weaknesses and drawbacks of the ordinary person; a being who is utterly beyond the feelings of selfishness, vanity, jealousy, anger, hatred, and other "vices" of a kindred nature; moreover a being who possesses a consciousness so intense, so infinitely alive as to warrant the expression superconsciousness..."

"...to all outward appearance these Adepts are perfectly normal, perfectly human; but it is to outward appearance only... Dressing neither in strange garments nor having in ghost-haunted castles, these men, far from wishing to awaken the curiosity or admiration of their fellows, seek to render themselves as ordinary to the casual observer as they possibly can."

"A certain point of view... is a prophylactic against all sorrow..and to acquire the right point of view...is the object of all mature thinking. That being so, mental pain is the result of a certain sort of childishness, and a grown-up soul would be as incapable of suffering over the thing you spoke of, as a grown-up person over the breaking of a doll."

"We are not learning the occult alphabet; most of us have done all that before we came here. I used to read for about three or four hours a day before I met M.H.-not as a duty, but because I liked it. When you’ve extracted all the knowledge you can out of books, then the Master appears."

"There is only one way to further the evolution of your fellows, and that is by persuading them- not by forcing them, mind you- to alter their motives; for motives is everything, actions are secondary. If you can teach people to think with their hearts as well as with their brains, you’ll have done some good."

"...It is absolutely essential that in order to find we must know how to seek, only to him who follows the requisite of this maxim is it possible to discover the truth..."

"No supermoralist ever interferes with the liberty of other people- only moralists do that. By all means let men make as many laws as they like if it amuses them, but let them make them for themselves, and not for others. What business have we to go poking our fingers into other people’s pies? Do you think that by forcing our fellows to do this or that, we are furthering their evolution?"

"...there are a number of people who may doubt the possibility of attaining to that degree of perfection which he indubitably manifested, thus crediting me with writing romance instead of fact. And yet he does not by any means stand alone at his stage of spiritual evolution, for not only are there many more like him living amongst us at the present time, but if world-history is to be accredited with truth, there have been hundreds as great as and greater than he in the past."

"If we were always here and now, electric shiver in the spine, how could we turn away, see life as grey and drab? How come we don't see what we have?"

"She's here now, perfume coiled like a thuggee scarf"

"The streets seemed very crowded, I put on my bravest guise I know you know that I am acting, I can see it in your eyes."

"Re-awakening isn't easy when you're tired. Don't push me: I was taught self-expression when I was a child"

"These words are not enough to save my soul, they just mock me from the mirror."

"Obviously we're English middle-class chaps - there's not much voodoo chile about us."