“Music is love in search of a word.”

—  Colette

Last update Jan. 4, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Music is love in search of a word." by Colette?
Colette photo
Colette 59
1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi 1873–1954

Related quotes

Sidney Lanier photo
Lawrence Durrell photo

“Music is only love looking for words.”

Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Ani DiFranco photo

“I love all those great 'f' words - feminism, folk music..”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

from a 2003 interview with MuchMusic

Cecelia Ahern photo

“Love is wholeness, with no searching.”

Jakub Tencl (1978) Czech clinical hypnotherapist and writer

Source: The mystery of life : you are the light, and that's indestructible truth, Tencl, Jakub,, 9781512399882, [United Kingdom? https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/914353319,, 914353319]

Benjamin Spock photo

“It's not the words but the music that counts.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care
Elie Wiesel photo

“Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

“Wilderness. The word itself is music.”

Source: Desert Solitaire

Stevie Nicks photo

“Is love so fragile,
And the heart so hollow,
Shatter with words,
Impossible to follow,
You're saying I'm fragile, I try not to be,
I search only, for something I can't see.”

Stevie Nicks (1948) American singer and songwriter, member of Fleetwood Mac

Leather And Lace
Bella Donna (album) (1981)

Felix Mendelssohn photo

“People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words. These, too, seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words. The thoughts which are expressed to me by music that I love are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite.”

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) German composer, pianist and conductor

Die Leute beklagen sich gewöhnlich, die Musik sei so vieldeutig; es sei so zweifelhaft, was sie sich dabei zu denken hätten, und die Worte verstände doch ein Jeder. Mir geht es aber gerade umgekehrt. Und nicht blos mit ganzen Reden, auch mit einzelnen Worten, auch die scheinen mir so vieldeutig, so unbestimmt, so mißverständlich im Vergleich zu einer rechten Musik, die einem die Seele erfüllt mit tausend besseren Dingen als Worten. Das, was mir eine Musik ausspricht, die ich liebe, sind mir nicht zu unbestimmte Gedanken, um sie in Worte zu fassen, sondern zu bestimmte.
Letter to Marc-André Souchay, October 15, 1842, cited from Briefe aus den Jahren 1830 bis 1847 (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1878) p. 221; translation from Felix Mendelssohn (ed. Gisella Selden-Goth) Letters (New York: Pantheon, 1945) pp. 313-14.

Related topics