“Wagner's music is better than it sounds.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Actually by Bill Nye, possibly confused due to Nye quoting Twain in More Tramps Abroad, 1897. (See also autobiography, vol. 1, p. 288.)
Misattributed
To Leon Goldensohn, February 12, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
“Wagner's music is better than it sounds.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Actually by Bill Nye, possibly confused due to Nye quoting Twain in More Tramps Abroad, 1897. (See also autobiography, vol. 1, p. 288.)
Misattributed
Daniel Barenboim (1942) Israeli Argentine-born pianist and conductor
SPIEGEL Interview with Daniel Barenboim
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor
But I [Renoir] was very happy it wasn't too much of a flop: There is something of that admirable face in it' <br class="br">Quote of Renoir, in his letter to a friend, 15 Jan. 1882; as cited in 'Pierre Auguste Renoir - Richard Wagner', text of museum D'Orsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/richard-wagner-11042.html?no_cache=1 <br class="br">At the beginning of 1882, Renoir was travelling in the south of Italy and visited Palermo where Wagner was staying. Renoir proposed a short sitting for the following day and Wagner agreed; he had just finished his 'Parsifal'. <br class="br">1880's
“The late Bill Nye once said "I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds."”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 (2010), p. 288
Brian Greene book The Elegant Universe
The Elegant Universe : Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (1999), p. 271
Context: Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules and brush the edge of acceptability in the search for solutions. Mathematicians are more like classical composers, typically working within a much tighter framework, reluctant to go to the next step until all previous ones have been established with due rigor. Each approach has its advantages as well as drawbacks; each provides a unique outlet for creative discovery. Like modern and classical music, it’s not that one approach is right and the other wrong – the methods one chooses to use are largely a matter of taste and training.
“I like champagne—because it always tastes like my foot's asleep.”
Art Buchwald (1925–2007) journalist, humorist, United States Marine
Some Heady Phrases on Wine http://books.google.com/books?id=uFDq4ORNvPkC&q=%22I+like+champagne+because+it+always+tastes+like+my+foot's+asleep%22&pg=PA143#v=onepage, New York Herald Tribune (1954) http://goodgrape.com/index.php/articles/comments/wine_sediments6