Quotes about Music

The men of old times had little sense;/If you called them fools you wouldn't be far wrong./They invented songs, and all the sweetness of music,/To perform at feasts, banquets, and celebrations;/But no one thought of using/Songs and stringed instruments/To banish the bitterness and pain of life.

I spent my Saturday nights in New York, because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant, from his garden, and the cars going up and down his drive.

The voluptuous chords of the wedding march done in blasphemous syncopation issued in a delirious blend from the trombones and saxophones--and

I always pray when I write songs that my spirit guides, or whoever is with me, inspiring me, would let me speak the truth.

In a long meter hymn, a singer - they call it 'lays out a line.' And then the whole church joins in in repeating that line. And they form a wall of harmony so tight, you can't wedge a pin between it.

A lot of my philosophies came from sheet music. 'Some Day My Prince Will Come,' or 'Blue Skies Smiling at Me' - they were very uplifting, wholesome lyrics, and I really believed those words when I sang them.

Everyone was surprised then that our music got such a foothold because they said 'You're so fresh-faced and wholesome.'

My audience went, 'Wait, why is she singing jazz? What's going on?' And then they went, 'Oh, because she can. Because she loves it.' And jazz, a music invented by the African-American community, is the greatest art form, I believe, to have ever come out of this country.

Questioning the origin of music is like asking why the breeze is soothing, why you shiver in exhilaration when the spray from the waterfall hits you.

Just look at the Old Testament. They didn't go out with the army first. They sent the musicians out.

Life is one grand sweet song so start the music

Let us sing even when we do not feel like it, for in this way we give wings to heavy feet and turn weariness into strength.