A Quote by John Ashbery

Sometimes a musical phrase would perfectly sum up The mood of a moment. One of those lovelorn sonatas For wind instruments was riding past on a solemn white horse. Everybody wondered who the new arrival was.
There is perhaps nothing that is not musical. Perhaps there's no moment in life that's not musical... All instruments, musical or not, become instruments.
The same wind blows on us all. The economic wind, the social wind, the political wind. The same wind blows on everybody. The difference in where you arrive in one year, three years, five years, the difference in arrival is not the blowing of the wind but the set of the sail.
Horses are not for riding! They do not exist for riding! Horse riding is man's invention! It is the making up of human benefit!
I grew up listening to my grandfather's stories of our musical past. He would often talk about the orchestras that played at concerts and the musicians who played on Sunday evenings on street corners. By the time I grew up in the '80s, all of this was a thing of the past. I lived vicariously through his stories and often wondered what it would have felt like to have been part of his generation.
One of my favorite activities when I was a teenager was going riding on the back of a horse with a friend of mine. Because we were rather high up, I could see into peoples' lighted windows as we trotted past. Questions would rise up inside: Who lives there? Are they happy? What are they doing? Any dogs or cats in sight?
Wardruna is a combination of old and new. I use historical instruments and new and electronic instruments and tools. I use drones and samples to build these huge sounds. Sometimes just a sound can trigger words or melodies. I don't have a romantic notion about the past; with Wardruna I wanted to create something new using something old.
BMX riding breaks down racial perceptions. Coming from New York City and being a BMX rider, that isn't something that's too common. I feel like for the longest time, I would ride through certain neighborhoods and people would call me a "white boy" because they associated white boys from California with BMX riding, and it bugs me so much because I'm completely not that. I completely don't fit that mold. It's really important for me to bring BMX riding to the masses and show people exactly what it is.
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding-- Riding--riding-- The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
If we have to sum up the Book of Revelation in one phrase, it would be, 'Jesus wins.
If we have to sum up the Book of Revelation in one phrase, it would be, 'Jesus wins.'
Musical people always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be perfectly deaf.
As soon as I was born, my mom said I was humming 'When the Saints Go Marching In,' or something like that, you know? It's in the family. And in that neighborhood [Treme, in New Orleans], I think everybody in the neighborhood has some type of musical influence, even if they don't play instruments or anything. It's the way they talk to you, the way they say your name - it's all musical.
Growing up in the Libya of the 1970s, I remember the prevalence of local bands who were as much influenced by Arabic musical traditions as by the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. But the project of 'Arabisation' soon got to them, too, and western musical instruments were declared forbidden as 'instruments of imperialism.'
I would never have picked up cycling had it not been for my disability because it just wasn't something I saw. You see someone riding past in their Lycra and it's normally white, middle-class males and I never would have seen myself in that position, being an elite cyclist.
I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.
I started out doing musical theater specifically - I thought I would eventually move to New York and audition for stuff, and maybe wind up on Broadway or something. Well, that didn't happen.
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