Music Quotes
Shakespeare has the most entries, as usual, with Claude Debussy and Wordsworth well up the list. The best-sourced line is Nietzsche’s in Twilight of the Idols (1889), that without music life would be a mistake, and Emerson’s image of the silent organ chanting loudest (Poems, 1847) is the sort of thing that rewards a second read.
The three entries with flags are all ones people like to share. “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds” is credited to Mark Twain and flagged misattributed. “You grow with music, or the music outgrows you” is credited to John Lennon, and the note says no verifiable source has been found. The line about music being the best means we have of digesting time is credited to W. H. Auden and is flagged misattributed as well.
I want my music to make a difference by changing somebody’s opinion about life
The only way for me to get out of that situation was to put on music and dance.
I’m into music and I like the beat. I love Nancy. I can do what I want to do. I’m grown.
He challenged me to compose music, and then to write a song that was very deep in meaning.
You can't write music right [...] until you know how the man that'll play it plays poker.
Music for me is something I prefer to keep away form the whole business part of my life.
Men have died for this music. You can’t get more serious than that.
—Dizzy Gillespie