“The good life of any river may depend on the perception of its music; and the preservation of some music to perceive.”

“Who publishes the sheet-music of the winds, or the written music of water written in river-lines?”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

“All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

“It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“The very being of music is created by cognitive attributions made by individual perceiving or conceiving imaginers, in individual acts of perceiving or conceiving--that, in fact, the only real music 'theory' IS the creative-intellectual transaction which ontologizes music itself.”

Benjamin Boretz (1934) American composer

“Any piece of good music is in essence a love song.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

“Music is my life, if I am without music or if I can't sing any more, I die, I'm nothing…because music is everything.”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

“Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

“A mental image occurs when a representation of the type created during the initial phases of perception is present but the stimulus is not actually being perceived; such representations preserve the perceptible properties of the stimulus and ultimately give rise to the subjective experience of perception.”

Stephen Kosslyn (1948) American psychologist

“The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home