“For some reason, people think that music must tell us only about the pinnacles of the human spirit, or at least about highly romantic villains. Most people are average, neither black nor white. They're gray. A dirty shade of gray. And it's in that vague gray middle ground that the fundamental conflicts of our age take place.”

Page 94
Testimony (1979)

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Do you have more details about the quote "For some reason, people think that music must tell us only about the pinnacles of the human spirit, or at least about h…" by Dmitri Shostakovich?

Dmitri Shostakovich32

Russian composer and pianist 1906–1975

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Fresco (2000), Chapter 12, p. 125

“There are only shades of gray. Black and white are nothing more than lofty ideals in our minds, the standards by which we try to judge things, and map out our place in the world in relevance to them.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

“Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.”

Thomas Middleton The Witch

The Witch (1616), Act v. Sc. 2. Compare: Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1. According to Steevens, "the song was, in all probability, a traditional one"; Collier says, "Doubtless it does not belong to Middleton more than to Shakespeare"; Dyce says, "There seems to be little doubt that ‘Macbeth’ is of an earlier date than ‘The Witch’".

“People don't change. There are two kinds of people in the world: winners and losers. Black and white. I don't know where gray fits in, or if you can even live in that shade.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead