Top 1200 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Composers

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

'The Phantom of the Opera' is about love. It's as simple as that.

I think my writing has an old-fashioned feel to it for whatever reason. I'm just so influenced by the music that I listened to growing up, a lot of it out of the '60s, so it has a natural tendency to feel like it's from another era.

I'm there to tailor something very precisely and something very subtly to dialogue and the actor's energy. I'm there to bring out something that isn't spoken. 'King's Speech' is the perfect film to do it.

When I first began to work in pictures I tried to attract the attention of film critics, but I don't make movies to please them or myself anymore. I look for material that will entertain.

I'm just delighted to be living, to be able to have a simple conversation, to feel a ray of sunlight on my skin and listen to the breeze move through the leaves of a tree.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

As far as Pakistani music is concerned, it definately has a nice ring to it, so whats the big deal as long as people are getting to hear good music from all parts of the world.

The daily glitter of skyscrapers competing with the stars is an unnecessary, unforgivable decadence.

The best inheritance a father can leave his children is a good example.

I actually enjoy the fantasy world quite a bit. You have no boundaries.

Deep Listening is listening to everything all the time, and reminding yourself when you're not. But going below the surface too, it's an active process. It's not passive. I mean hearing is passive in that soundwaves hinge upon the eardrum. You can do both. You can focus and be receptive to your surroundings. If you're tuned out, then you're not in contact with your surroundings. You have to process what you hear. Hearing and listening are not the same thing.

Chopin is a great composer who influenced many, many important composers. He was a great innovator, especially in harmony.

Imagination creates reality.

Cheap electronics are not built to be repaired. They're just used and then discarded.

I grew up going to see my sister dance, both at the ballet and later as a modern dancer, and have always been a big fan of the ballet. So I have had a long relationship with dance.

I do sometimes go back to my old songs. Some I feel very proud of. They make me wonder, 'How did I do this?'

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.

It is a boring life if you stick to all the rules.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

At USC, when I studied film scoring my first year, one of my first friends that I met was Ryan Coogler. He was in the directing program at USC. He became one of my best friends at school.

I'm very flash and burn - the first thing that comes to mind is obviously the best idea, and that's because it should come out of a natural place, and if you don't do that then you're writing someone else's music, not your own.

Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.

Music is the silence between the notes.

Music is a universal thing with no boundaries, whether you play inside or outside.

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.

There's nothing like desperation to sharpen your sense of focus.

Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I.

We people, maybe because we have the greatest wisdom, we are also mad. We destroy the harmony of the world.

My message is to forget about dichotomies. The Brain Opera is an opera, even if it does not tell a story in the usual way. It is a psychological journey with voices - so I do consider it an opera.

Well, the first two movies of any size that I did were a movie called 'Everybody's All American' that Taylor Hackford directed - I was pretty diva on that - and then 'Pretty Woman,' which is probably my first real breakthrough.

Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.

I live in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. and spend time in the West Village, where my wife Elizabeth Cotnoir, a writer-producer and documentary filmmaker, has an office.

I assumed no one would ever listen to my music, and for quite a lot of years, I was right.

The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.

Humor is the ability to see three sides to one coin.

All the world loves a clown.

I travel the world, and I'm happy to say that America is still the great melting pot - maybe a chunky stew rather than a melting pot at this point, but you know what I mean.

I like the fact that New York looks a bit backwards, toward the Old World, rather than resolutely forwards.

I listen to all kinds of music - new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything.

The sky hides the night behind it, and shelters the people beneath from the horror that lies above.

Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding.

Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife.

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

If a person plays dissonance long enough, it will sound like consonance. It's a language that was alien and then it's less and less alien as it continues to live.

If nothing is at risk, nothing is established.

I have always worked hard. The only thing missing was a smile from Lady Luck.

One thing I am certain of is that, if I have done anything good in music, it was, first, because of my father, and second, because of my wife.

The song that starts with 'Neene Rama, neene Shama, neene Allah, neene Yesu,' is very profound. It exhorts people to stop looking for god everywhere and to instead look within themselves.

I was offered a free villa in Hollywood, but I said no thank you, I prefer to live in Italy.

Conducting is more difficult than playing a single instrument. You have to know the culture, to know the score, and to project what you want to hear. Some conductors are well prepared but cannot transmit their ideas to an orchestra, and others are good communicators but have nothing to transmit because they are not absorbed enough in the score.

A great work is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty.

I want to give my compliments to Australia. Ever since your government paid a few million dollars for a Jackson Pollack painting, I figure that it must be a marvellous country.

The best way to investigate the elusive phenomenon called the creative process may well be to target all the misconceptions, to explain what the creative process is not.

So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.

The visual and literary arts are of perennial interest to me, and these art forms have become more and more a part of my life; they have become companions of sorts. I cannot imagine my day to day experiences without the presence of these art forms. They're absolutely essential.

When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.