Quotes about music
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“My earbuds were in, but I wasn't playing music. I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Variant: I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.
Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

World

“There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. To become oblivious in dreams was impossible now, at least till night-time; it was impossible to return to that music sung by carafe-women; and so one had to become oblivious in the dreams of life.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Pt. 1, ch. 2
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Life, Women, Dreams, Question

“If Music is a Place -- then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

“LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

“I see my life in terms of music.”

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

Life

“But bringing people together is what music has always done best.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut

People

“There's a friendly tie of some sort between music and eating.”

Thomas Hardy Under the Greenwood Tree

Source: Under the Greenwood Tree

“It's like picking up an unfamiliar piece of sheet music & starting to stumble through it, only to realize it is a melody you'd once learned by heart, one you can play without even trying.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Learning, Heart

“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

Happiness, Books

“Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.”

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (1933) Japanese actress

Source: Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window

Truth, Fear, Beauty, Heart

“Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Happiness, People

“If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Travis Parker, Chapter 13, p. 166
Variant: conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale.
Source: 2000s, The Choice (2007)
Context: Finding a woman with a sense of humor had been the one piece of advice his father had given him when he'd first begun to get serious about dating, and he finally understood why his dad had considered it important. If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale.

Laughter, Time, Relationship

“In our world, I rank music somewhere between hair ribbons and rainbows in terms of usefulness.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

World

“The muffled syllables that Nature speaks
Fill us with deeper longing for her word;
She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks,
She makes a sweeter music than is heard.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Nature

“To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for somebody to unfasten them. Someday the sky would be emptied, but by then the earth would be a constellation of musical scores”

Machado de Assis (1839–1908) Brazilian writer

Source: The Devil's Church and Other Stories

Star, Waiting

“I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Life, Parting

“All humans are musical. Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?”

Mitch Albom book The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

Source: The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

Heart

“For me there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall.”

Eric Clapton (1945) English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

Feeling

“And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

St. 11.
The Day is Done (1845)

Night

“It strikes Werner just then as wondrously futile to build splendid buildings, to make music, to sing songs, to print huge books full of colorful birds in the face of the seismic, engulfing indifference of the world - what pretensions humans have!”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Books, World, Color, Bird

“He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Sadness, Beauty, Cry

“That's when I see him. Peter Kavinsky, walking down the hallway. Like magic. Beautiful, dark-haired Peter. He deserves background music, he looks so good.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Beauty

“Where music thundered let the mind be still,
Where the will triumphed let there be no will,
What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Light

“It's music rage, which is like road rage, only more righteous. When you get road rage, a tiny part of you knows you're being a jerk, but when you get music rage, you're carrying out the will of God, and God wants these people dead”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

God, People, Jerk, Rage

“The community of the Giver had achieved at such great price. A community without danger or pain. But also, a community without music, color or art. And books.”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

Pain, Books, Art, Color

“Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles.”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

Youth

“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

As quoted in Reader's Digest Vol. 111, No. 666, (October 1977)

Silence, Reading, Personality

“Beautiful music plays, but not everyone with ears can hear it.”

Danielle Trussoni book Angelology

Source: Angelology

Beauty

“Music, my rampart and my only one.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

“When the music is over, she keeps her head down till she finds her seat again, and I wonder how many times each day she dies a little.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Time

“Has the industry done to music what McDonald’s has done to eating?”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

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

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

Life, Dependency

“It sounds silly I know. But for me, the power of music rests in its ability to reach inside and touch the places where the deepest cuts lie. Like a benevolent god, a good song will never let you down.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

God, Lie

“This was the reason there was music, he realized. There were some feelings that didn't have words big enough to describe them.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Variant: This is why there was music. There were some feelings that just didn't have words big enough to describe them.
Source: Between the Lines

Feeling

“You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound You don't win with a lot of treble.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3
Context: You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound You don't win with a lot of treble. This isn't about quality. It's about volume. This isn't about music. This is about winning. You stomp the competition with the bass line. You rattle windows. You drop the melody line, and shout the lyrics. You put in foul language and come down hard on each cussword. You dominate. This is really about power.

People

“Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.”

Yann Martel book Beatrice and Virgil

Source: Beatrice and Virgil

Life, Sense, Painting

“Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone's very heart. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Food, Sense, Singing, Heart

“A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.”

Robert McKee (1941) American academic specialised in seminars for screenwriters

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Art, Silence, Dance, Painting

“Anything can become music if listened to long enough”

Jeff Noon (1957) British writer

“People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf, it has to be played louder still.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

People

“Do you know people who insist they like 'all kinds of music'? That actually means they likeof music.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

People

“There is nothing in the world that is not mysterious, but the mystery is more evident in certain things than in others: in the sea, in the eyes of the elders, in the color yellow, and in music.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

World, Color, Sea

“I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter Four, Pappin
Context: I am a free man-and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion. I need sunshine and paving tones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me. Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to anyone, I would've responsible to God alone-if he exited!

Heart, Despair

“To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for somebody to unfasten them.”

Machado de Assis (1839–1908) Brazilian writer

Star, Waiting

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Men, Money, Dogs, Business

“It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.”

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) English composer, conductor, and pianist

Love, Pain, Beauty, Disappointment

“Some say it's too country, some say it's too rock n' roll. But it's just good music if you can feel it in your soul.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Feeling, Soul, Country

“Telling someone about what a symbol means is like telling someone how music should make them feel.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

Feeling

“There are worse things than finding your wife and child dead. You can watch the world do it. You can watch your wife get old and bored. You can watch your kids discover everything in the world you've tried to save them from. Drugs, divorce, conformity, disease. All the nice clean books, music, television. Distraction. These people with dead children, you want to tell them, go ahead. Blame yourself. There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is just to watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3

Love, Children, People, Books

“My ambition was to live like music.”

Mary Gaitskill (1954) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

“I don’t think many people appreciate silence or realize that it is as close to music as you can get.”

Toni Morrison book God Help the Child

Source: God Help the Child

People, Thinking, Silence

“Life's a show and we all play a part
And when the music starts
We open up our hearts”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Life, Heart, Parting

“The Smiths are singing and someone says "Turn that gay angst music off.”

Bret Easton Ellis The Rules of Attraction

Source: The Rules of Attraction

Singing

“Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.”

Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001) Entrepreneur

People

“Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music, I get most joy in life out of music.”

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

Life, Joy

“Listen to them — children of the night. What music they make.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Dracula referring to the howling of the wolves to Jonathan Harker.
Dracula (1897)

Children, Night

“Music fathoms the sky.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

“The light music of whisky falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

Source: Dubliners

Light

“The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all of these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Art, Feeling, Memory

“I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Henry, Act II, scene V
Source: The Real Thing (1982)
Context: Buddy Holly was twenty-two. Think of what he might have gone on to achieve. I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course.

History

“DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”

Richard Dawkins book River Out of Eden

Source: River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

Dance

“I just listened to the music, and breathed in the day, and remembered things. Things like walking around the neighborhood and looking at the houses and the lawns and the colorful trees and having that be enough.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Color, Tree, Housing

“I was like a well trained pianist who knows which note to hit, but can't make the music his own.”

David Benioff book City of Thieves

Source: City of Thieves

Training

“Musically, he was like an old man in a boy's skin.”

Eric Clapton (1945) English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

Boy

“Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.”

John Erskine (1879–1951) American educator

“This is the music business. 'Five years is five hundred years' - your words.”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Business

“This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

World

“The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Source: Great Narrative Poems Of The Romantic Age

Heart

“I'm wishing he could see that music lives. Forever. That it's stronger than death. Stronger than time. And that its strength holds you together when nothing else can.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Death, Time

“We grown-up people think that we appreciate music, but if we realized the sense that an infant has brought with it of appreciating sound and rhythm, we would never boast of knowing music. The infant is music itself.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

People, Thinking, Sense

“Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Passion, Time, Clothes

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

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

“No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book, or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

Alcohol, Books, Painting

“There are only four great arts: music, painting, sculpture, and ornamental pastry- architecture being perhaps the least banal derivative of the latter.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Art, Painting

“When it comes, you’ll be dreaming
that you don’t need to breathe;
that breathless silence is
the music of the dark
and it’s part of the rhythm
to vanish like a spark.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

Dreams, Silence, Parting

“The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Books, World, School, Heart

“The music, while it lasted, brought a new world into being.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Jayber Crow

World

“You understand my music.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Understanding

“Poetry is prose bewitched, a music made of visual thoughts, the sound of an idea.”

Mina Loy (1882–1966) Futurist poet and actress

Source: The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy

Idea

“A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless'…”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Love, Life, Friendship, Literature

“… A strange art – music – the most poetic and precise of all the arts, vague as a dream and precise as algebra.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Source: Complete Works

Dreams, Art

“When we pay attention to nature's music, we find that everything on the Earth contributes to its harmony.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

Nature

“Music is the melody whose text is the world.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

World

“Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 14
Context: Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.

Literature, Back To Work

“The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face, 19
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,—
And oh, that eye was in itself a soul!”

George Gordon Byron book The Bride of Abydos

Canto I, Stanza 6; this can be compared to: "The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love", Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy I. 3, line 16; also: "Oh, could you view the melody / Of every grace / And music of her face", Richard Lovelace, Orpheus to Beasts; "There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument", Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Part ii, Section ix.
The Bride of Abydos (1813)

Love, Soul, Light, Heart

“I think you're the only person who gets me. When I'm with you, the world doesn't feel like a problem I can't figure out. Please come to the dance, because you're my music.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

World, Feeling, Problem, Thinking