“There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law. I love music passionately. And because l love it, I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.”
Quoted in An Encyclopedia of Quotations About Music (1981) by Nat Shapiro, p. 268
Unsourced variant: There is no theory. You have only to listen. Fantasy is the law.
Context: There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law. I love music passionately. And because l love it, I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it. It is a free art gushing forth — an open-air art, boundless as the elements, the wind, the sky, the sea. It must never be shut in and become an academic art.
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Claude Debussy 34
French composer 1862–1918Related quotes

Original: (it) Amo la semplicità, mi piacciono le persone che sanno ascoltare musica con il cuore, sentire gli odori della vita, catturarne l'anima. Perché lì c'è verità, c'è dolcezza... lì c'è ancora amore.
Source: prevale.net

Interview with DJ Ron Slomowicz at About.com http://dancemusic.about.com/od/artistshomepages/a/LadyGagaInt_2.htm

On being a folk musician in “Lila Downs Explores Mexican Heritage Through the Pepper in New LP, ‘Al Chile’” https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-latin/lila-downs-new-lp-al-chile-interview-841209/ in Rolling Stone (29 May 2019)
Music and culture

TIME interview (1991)
Context: I love the idea of a left conservative because it gets rid of political cant. We're stifling in it. One of the diseases of the right is self-righteousness. I do believe that America's deepest political sickness is that it is a self-righteous nation.
One of the diseases of the left is political correctness. If you're out of power for too long, then you just get worse and worse about how important your own ideas are.

“Only those who listen to music with the heart can experience the vibrations of love.”
Original: (it) Solo chi ascolta musica col cuore riesce a provare le vibrazioni dell'amore.
Source: prevale.net