Nahum Tate

“For sorrow is our joy, And joy our greatest sorrow. Elissa dies tonight, And Carthage flames tomorrow”. –Nahum Tate

Johnny Cash

“I love the freedoms we got in this country. I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine”. –Johnny Cash

Charles Dibdin

“For a soldier I listed, to grow great in fame. And be shot at for sixpence a day”. –Charles Dibdin

Louis Armstrong

“Making money ain’t nothing exciting to me. You might be able to buy a little better booze than the wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat, and when you die you’re just as graveyard dead as he is”. –Louis Armstrong

John Bonham

“Drumming was the only thing I was ever good at”. –John Bonham

Jaco Pastorius

“It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up”. –Jaco Pastorius

Antonín Dvořák

“I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States”. –Antonín Dvořák

Marvin Gaye

“If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else”. –Marvin Gaye

Frédéric Chopin

“I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them”. Frédéric Chopin

Curtis Mayfield

“Don’t worry – if there’s a hell below, we all gonna go”. –Curtis Mayfield

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings”. –Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Thelonious Monk

“Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture”. –Thelonious Monk

Steve Allen

“Ours is a government of checks and balances. The Mafia and crooked businessmen make out checks, and the politicians and other compromised officials improve their bank balances”. –Steve Allen

Claude Debussy

“Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art”. –Claude Debussy

Bruno Walter

“Napoleon is dead — but Beethoven lives”. –Bruno Walter

Irving Berlin

“The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success”. –Irving Berlin

Georges Bizet

“As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note”. –Georges Bizet

Franz Liszt

“What is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown song of which death sounds the first solemn note?” –Franz Liszt

Hector Berlioz

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils”. –Hector Berlioz

Igor Stravinsky

“One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles”. –Igor Stravinsky

Oscar Levant

“I envy people who drink; at least they know what to blame everything on”. –Oscar Levant

Richard Wagner

“I hate this fast-growing tendency to chain men to machines in big factories, and deprive them of all joy in their efforts. The plan will lead to cheap men, and cheap products”. –Richard Wagner

Frank Zappa

“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe”. –Frank Zappa