“Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music-not too much, or the soul could not sustain it-from time to time.”

— Vikram Seth , book An Equal Music

Source: An Equal Music

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be bless…" by Vikram Seth?

Vikram Seth 12

Indian writer 1952

Related quotes

“Three films a day, three books a week and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die.”

Francois Truffaut (1932–1984) film director

“If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much thought into your writing and not enough heart.”

Terry Brooks (1944) American writer

Source: Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life

“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Russian composer, pianist, and conductor

“The author's conviction on this day of the New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Preface
ABC of Reading (1934)

“If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music.”

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) Finnish composer of the late Romantic period

Interview with Berlingske Tidende, June 10, 1919. http://www.sibelius.fi/english/omin_sanoin/ominsanoin_16.htm

“There’s no need either for music to make people think! … It would be enough if music could make people listen”

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer

Letter to Paul Dukas (1901)
Context: I confess that I am no longer thinking in musical terms, or at least not much, even though I believe with all my heart that Music remains for all time the finest means of expression we have. It’s just that I find the actual pieces — whether they’re old or modern, which is in any case merely a matter of dates — so totally poverty-stricken, manifesting an inability to see beyond the work-table. They smell of the lamp, not of the sun. And then, overshadowing everything, there’s the desire to amaze one’s colleagues with arresting harmonies, quite unnecessary for the most part. In short, these days especially, music is devoid of emotional impact. I feel that, without descending to the level of the gossip column or the novel, it should be possible to solve the problem somehow. There’s no need either for music to make people think! … It would be enough if music could make people listen, despite themselves and despite their petty mundane troubles, and never mind if they’re incapable of expressing anything resembling an opinion. It would be enough if they could no longer recognize their own grey, dull faces, if they felt that for a moment they had been dreaming of an imaginary country, that’s to say, one that can’t be found on the map.

“Hears the music under the rock
One of these days he'll stop
Don't stop when the music stops.”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"Such a Quiet Man (original song!)" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HA6bri22Tk, the first original song she posted to YouTube, about which she wrote: "I got bored so I wrote this song tonight. The music, instruments, the lyrics, backup vocals, everything was me. And yes it is TOTALLY WEIRD!!!!!!" (13 May 2007)