Music quotes

I am fortunate to have music both as a hobby and a job. During these past many years that I have listened to music, written about music and worked on, and, with music, I have also from time to time, taken down quotes about music. These continue to grow in number and old or new, these never fail to affect me in the nicest of ways. 

Some are profound. Others are funny, flippant or just plain nonsense. But no matter what they are, what people say about music is always something that makes me happy that music exists. As the poet Walter Savage Landor said a long time ago, “Music is one of God’s best gifts to man. The only art of heaven given to earth. The only art of earth we take to heaven.” Here, culled from various sources like books, interviews, Internet lists, etc. from assorted times and places, are some of them.

“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

 “That’s one of the great things about music. You can sing a song to 85,000 people and they’ll sing it back for 85,000 reasons.” — Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters

“When I was a little boy, I told my Dad, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a musician.’ My dad said, ‘You can’t do both, Son.’” — Chet Atkins

“If it weren’t for music, I would think that love is mortal.” — Mark Helprin

“All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.” — Louis Armstrong

“Music gives a soul to the universe. Wings to the mind. Flight to the imagination and life to everything.” — Plato

“If I didn’t do music well, I just wouldn’t have anything to do…I can’t cook and I’d be a terrible housewife.” — Freddie Mercury of Queen

“Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note, unsaid.” — Langston Hughes

“If I should ever die, God forbid. Let this be my epitaph: ‘The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.’” — Kurt Vonnegut

“I’d rather be a musician than a rock star.” — George Harrison

“Music can change the world because it can change people.” —  Bono

“People haven’t always been there for me, but music always has.” — Taylor Swift

“There’s nothing like the eureka moment of knocking off a song that didn’t exist before — I won’t compare it to sex, but it lasts longer.” — Paul McCartney

“To listen is an effort and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.” — Igor Stravinsky

“The fact that music can induce goose bumps, draw a tear, inspire and connect is one of my favorite parts about being human.” — Mark Hoppus, Blink-182

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.” — Victor Hugo

“Music is the strongest form of magic.” — Marilyn Manson

“Music touches us emotionally, where words alone cannot.” — Johnny Depp

“One good thing about music. When it hits you, you feel no pain.” — Bob Marley

“He took his pain and turned it into something beautiful. Into something that people connect to. And that is what good music does. It speaks to you. It changes you.” — Hannah Harrington 

“Music is to me like breathing. I don’t get tired of breathing. I don’t get tired of music.” — Ray Charles

 “We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams.” — Arthur O’Shaughnessy

“Without music, life would be a mistake.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“The only truth is music.” — Jack Kerouac

“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.” — Albert Schweitzer

“Where words leave off. Music begins.” — Heinrich Heine

And to close, here is one of my favorites. Something to gladden, every songwriter’s heart. From The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky: 

“And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it’s enough. I really do because they have made me happy. And I am only one person.”

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here,” — from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone.