Quotes About Music

There is no worse sound in the world than someone who cannot play the violin but insists on doing so anyway.

Every night I give a violin recital for six hours, and attendance is mandatory. The word 'mandatory' means that if you don't show up, you have to buy me a large bag of candy and watch me eat it.

Composer" is a word which here means "a person who sits in a room, muttering and humming and figuring out what notes the orchestra is going to play." This is called composing. But last night, the Composer was not muttering. He was not humming. He was not moving, or even breathing. This is called decomposing.

Wherever there's a conductor, you're sure to find a dead composer!

There are many reasons, of course, why someone might snap their fingers and grin. If you heard some pleasing music, for instance, you might snap your fingers and grin to demonstrate that the music had charms that could soothe your savage breast. If you were employed as a spy, you might snap your fingers and grin in order to deliver a message in secret snapping-and-grinning code.

If you are going to hear the work of the world's greatest composers, you will have to allow for a little murder here and there. […] Those who want justice can go to the police, but those who want something a little more interesting should go to the orchestra!

I once threw myself down a flight of stairs rather than face even one moment with a milliner, at whose shop I quit working after discovering the sinister truth about her berets, only to find that the paramedic who repaired my fractured arm was a man who had fired me from a job playing accordion in his orchestra after only two and half performances of a certain opera.

every minute i spend talking to you is a mnute i could spend practicing the violin, and when you're a musical genius like me, every minute counts.

The siblings' father stood in the doorway of the library and said something they never forgot. "Children," he said, "There is no worse sound in the world than somebody who cannot play the violin who insists on doing so anyway.

It is extremely rude, of course, for an audience to talk during a concert performance

In the case of this sonata, Nero had apparently been inspired by somebody beating up a cat

I've always thought there was this underlying thing in Paul's "Get Back." When we were in the studio recording it, every time he sang the line "Get back to where you once belonged," he'd look at Yoko.

Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn't been an Elvis, there wouldn't have been the Beatles.

I go to restaurants and the groups always play "Yesterday." I even signed a guy's violin in Spain after he played us "Yesterday." He couldn't understand that I didn't write the song. But I guess he couldn't have gone from table to table playing "I Am The Walrus."

I'm not claiming divinity. I've never claimed purity of soul. I've never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can.

The idea of beetles came into my head. I decided to spell it BEATles to make it look like beat music, just a joke.

It's just natural, it's not a great disaster. People keep talking about it like it's The End of The Earth. It's only a rock group that split up, it's nothing important. You know, you have all the old records there if you want to reminisce.

As I play the game of life I try to make it better each and every day. And when I struggle in the night The magic of the music seems to light the way.

For our last number, I'd like to ask your help. Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry.

We're just going to play rock and roll and not do anything else; we're going to stay in our rooms, and the world is a nasty, horrible place because it didn't give us everything we cried for. Right?

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.

George Harrison, the Scouse of distinction!

I don't believe in Elvis I don't believe in Zimmerman I don't believe in Beatles. I just believe in me Yoko and me

It was amazing to me that, all of a sudden, I was hearing my music on the radio and coming out of cars.