A Quote by Anne Stevenson

Have you ever heard of a pianist who never had to practice - or of an architect who didn't bother to find out why buildings stand up? — © Anne Stevenson
Have you ever heard of a pianist who never had to practice - or of an architect who didn't bother to find out why buildings stand up?
The architect, Peter Arens who is the monstrous carbuncle architect, not merely did his design which had won a public competition never get built but his practice suffered financially for some years.
It doesn't bother me when someone is totally unaware of anything I've ever been in or done and says, 'Hey, man, I really like your music. I've never heard of you.' That doesn't bother me at all.
My father is an architect, so I often think like a designer or an architect. I remember when I was admiring buildings, I would look up at them and see this perspective and this awesome power of the monument in front of me.
They began to tune up, and suddenly the auditorium was filled with a single sound - the most alive, three-dimensional thing I had ever heard. It made the hairs on my skin stand up, my breath catch in my throat....I felt the music like a physical thing; it didn't just sit in my ears, it flowed through me, around me, made my senses vibrate. It made my skin prickle and my palms dampen...It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
I wanted to be an architect. I used to draw houses and buildings and construct buildings on my own.
Haven't you heard the Democrats disparage people who sign up? It's something I've never understood. Okay, you don't like the military, fine and dandy, but why impugn the people that sign up? They're signing up knowing full well they're volunteering. They're offering their lives, potentially. Why impugn 'em? Why go out...? Because it's an opportunity to criticize America; that's why. Because in the Democrat world, nobody would ever join the military. "Good Lord, we'd go to Yale - hell, we'd go to Dartmouth - before we go to the military!
When you get your self realization or your second birth you become entitled to an awareness by which you can find out the roots of everything. You can find out the roots why people get sick, you can find out why there are incurable diseases, you can find out why there are psychological problems, you can find out why there are moral crisises, you can find out why there are political problems, why there are economic problems.
Up to the age of 14 I had not heard a note of anything before 1750, never heard a note of Bach, never heard anything after Wagner, and never heard any real jazz.
I've been nominated four times, never won. And the whole world is going, `Why hasn't Winslet won one?' That's why I'm doing it. "Schindler's Bloody List," "The Pianist," Oscars coming out of their ass.
There are so many constraints on the architect that public buildings almost never feel free or enjoyable.
I had been with a good friend, had a few beers, didn't bother to eat, went down to the hotel where the party was, walked in and, God I don't know why, because I hardly ever drink it, I had a double scotch. And I had another.
Never in his life had occasion to ask himself, "Why are things the way they are?" Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn't even know the question existed.
Unfortunately, we are not painters and authors, where we can do something in isolation. We require a lot of money to create what we create. It's almost like being an architect: You can't be an architect and build whatever buildings you want to.
When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.
Music was literally in the air at the time, the Vienna of 1780. Everybody played music, classical music. There were in fact so many musicians that in apartment buildings people had to come up with a schedule - you practice at 5 p.m., I'll practice at 6 p.m. That way the music didn't collide with one another.
School is practice for the future, and practice makes perfect and nobody's perfect so why bother.
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