In memory everything seems to happen to music.
—Tennessee Williams
Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read.
—Frank Zappa
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
—Samuel Johnson
I don't like composers who think. It gets in the way of their plagiarism.
—Howard Dietz
Songs and smells will bring you back to a moment in time more than anything else. It’s amazing how much can be conjured with a few notes of a song or a solitary whiff of a room. A song you didn’t even pay attention to at the time, a place that you didn’t even know had a particular smell.
—Emily Giffin in Something Borrowed
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
—Edgar Wilson Nye
There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music.
—John Keats
Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else. Songs like "Let Me Rest on a Peaceful Mountain" or "I Saw the Light" — that's my religion. I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. . . . The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.
—Bob Dylan
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
Frederick William was deeply disappointed by his son, the future Frederick the Great, who in his youth seemed more interested in French culture, music, and literature than in the military virtues. The father's disaffection turned to actual hatred, and his treatment became so harsh that the young prince decided to run away, with the aid of two accomplices, Lieutenants Katte and Keith. The plan was discovered; Keith escaped, but the prince and Katte were captured and court-martialed. Katte was sentenced to life imprisonment, Frederick to solitary confinement. Frederick William, deciding that Katte's sentence was too lenient, had him beheaded in the presence of Prince Frederick. This drastic measure had the desired effect; Frederick asked the king's pardon and began to apply himself to acquiring the Prussian military philosophy.
—The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
—Albert Einstein
Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back, and, instead of bleeding, he sings.
—Robert Benchley
Rock-and-roll starts between the legs and goes through the heart, then to the head. As long as it does those three things, it's a great rock song.
—John Mellencamp
Country music is three chords and the truth.
—Harlan Howard
Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously.
—Henry Miller