Quotes from Robert Fripp

My life has improved so much since I stopped doing interviews.

Even within the band, if I cannot manage to persuade the members of what I see to be the next course of action, how do you expect the group to deal with the expectations of thousands of people. It is not possible.

The quality of artistry is the capacity to assume innocence at will, the quality of experiencing innocence as if for the first time.

And if you are playing in several meters at once, there has to be a - not a rigid - but there definitely has to be a reference to a common pulse in the band.

If an apprentice does not hear what a master hears, is then that quality not present in the music? Yes and no. In the world in which the apprentice lives no.

Then certainly for a musician timing becomes something that is immediately accessible as a concept, because it's a necessity in ones everyday performance.

In terms of an identity, an identity reflects an individuality, by definition. And, if there is a quality present, it is recognizable and it can be named. If you can't name it, it means you don't recognize it.

But above that, most mature adults can hold their attention on something for 45 minutes, whether they like it or not. But above that requires training.

The aim is freedom conscience and truth

Beginner's luck is great for beginners.

There are no mistakes, save one: the failure to learn from a mistake.

A mistake is always forgivable, rarely excusable and always unacceptable.

The spoken form is in fact a very restrained representation of what is possible in the musical language.

To me, Bill's musical heart is in Earthworks, in the jazz they are playing, in the acoustic kit.

According to USA today, the average length of an attention span of a man in America is 23 minutes.

So, you can set up an orchestra down this end of the railway station playing one particular area, and simultaneously at the other end something completely different going on. And in the middle they meet, or not, depending.

What is necessary is possible, what we want is expensive. What is unnecessary is unlikely.

Music can be transformative, utterly transformative. The act of music is utterly transformative.

Purely by hard work, one can become an artist.

Being a professional musician doesn't mean you spend 12 hours a day playing music. It means you spend up to 12 hours a day taking care of business, dealing with litigation, with the various characters who've stolen your interests, or fending off hostile lawsuits from former members of the band.

If you are playing repertoire material, you're stuck. There's not huge amounts you can do.

Business logic and musical logic are utterly incompatible.

Linguistic philosophers continue to argue that probably music is not a language, that is in the philosophical debate. Another point of view is to say that music is a very profound language.