As quoted in Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving (2001) by Jonathan G. Koomey, p. 96; since at least 2010 similar statements are also sometimes attributed to Mozart, and a similar remark, apparently one of Ben Jonson, is quoted in "Notes to Cynthia's Revels, in The Works of Ben Jonson: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir (1875), edited by William Gifford, Vol. 2, in notes to p. 223, on p. 551: Division, in music, is "the space between the notes of music, or the dividing of the tones."
Unsourced variants | Music is the silence between the notes. | The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between. | The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between them.
More quotes by Claude Debussy
How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling.
Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.
You may also like
Attribution
Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Claude Debussy (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.