Accordions Quotes - Page 2

• Do you know that my very first experience as a composer was a 'Concerto for Accordion?

  Alfred Schnittke

  Firsts, Composer, Knows

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• He wanted to play accordion on something of mine and I said you can play accordion, but I want you to play piano and organ on some stuff. He came over a couple times a week for two weeks and gave me therapy as to whether I should do The Thorns or not.

  Matthew Sweet

  Couple, Piano, Play

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• Comparatively few people know what a million dollars actually is. To the majority it is a gaseous concept, swelling or decreasing as the occasion suggests. In the minds of politicians, perhaps more than anywhere, the notion of a million dollars has this accordion-like ability to expand or contract; if they are disposing of it, the million is a pleasing sum, reflecting warmly upon themselves; if somebody else wants it, it becomes a figure of inordinate size, not to be compassed by the rational mind.

  Robertson Davies

  Money, War, People

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• "Who's Heinz and what's an accordion?"

  D. J. MacHale

  "Pendragon: The Never War". Book by D. J. MacHale, May 1, 2003.

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• I cut my teeth playing rock songs on the accordion when I was a teenager and my friends always thought that was extremely amusing. I think that was the genesis of my polka medleys, because every rock song I played on the accordion just sounded like a polka and my friends thought it was funny. So that was a joke that I continue up to this very day.

  Al Yankovic

  Song, Teenager, Cutting

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• Hockey belongs to the Cartoon Network, where a person can be pancaked by an ACME anvil, then expanded - accordion-style - back to full stature, without any lasting side effect.

  Steve Rushin

  Hockey, Nhl, Style

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• [Time was] an accordion, all the air squeezed out of it as you grew old.

  Helen Hooven Santmyer

  Time, Air, Age

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• I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them. And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river and I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

  Carl Sandburg

  Children, Beer, Sunday

  Carl Sandburg, (2013). “Chicago Poems”, p.27, Read Books Ltd

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• My parents had a sidewalk cafe: every Sunday there was an accordion player and apparently I went through the motions, squeezing a shoebox. One of the regulars in 'the cafe said to my father: "I think you should get your son an accordion-that's what he's trying to do, with that shoebox." So they got me a little cardboard diatonic accordion-I still have it. I started to play the National Anthem, and things like that. It seems I was musically gifted-but my parents just never pushed in that direction.

  Toots Thielemans

  Father, Son, Sunday

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• My mother brought home the accordion in 1942. I was fascinated and wanted to learn to play it. Some of my music has a relationship to dance styles - The Well and the Gentle or The Wanderer for example.

  Pauline Oliveros

  Mother, Home, Play

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• Fingers interlocked like a beautiful accordion of flesh or a zipper of prayer

  Sarah Kay

  Beautiful, Prayer, Zippers

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• She didn't dare to look up, but she could feel their frightened eyes hanging onto her as she hauled the words in and breathed them out. A voice played the notes inside her. This, it said, is your accordion.

  Markus Zusak

  Eye, Voice, Looks

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• To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.

  Henry Miller

  Song, Guitar, Singing

  Henry Miller, Norman Mailer (1976). “Genius and lust: a journey through the major writings of Henry Miller”, Grove Press

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• [W]hen the coyote falls, he gets up and brushes himself off; it's preservation of dignity. He's humiliated, and it worries him when he ends up looking like an accordion. A coyote isn't much, but it's better than being an accordion.

  Chuck Jones

  Fall, Worry, Coyotes

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• We're all like the little sailor. From the harbors we hear the strains of accordions and the murky soapy noises of the docks, from the mountains we receive the dish of silence that the shepherds eat, but we don't hear more than our own distances. And what distances without end and without doors and without mountains!

  Federico Garcia Lorca

  Distance, Doors, Silence

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• I'm probably the only kid in history whose parents made him stop taking music lessons. They made me stop studying the accordion.

  Ricky Jay

  Kids, Parent, Lessons

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• Papa sat with me tonight. He brought the accordion down and sat close to where Max used to sit. I often look at his fingers and face when he plays. the accordion breathes. There are lines on his cheeks. They look drawn on, and for some reason, when I see them, I want to cry. It is not for any sadness or pride. I just like the way they move and change. Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.

  Markus Zusak

  Moving, Sadness, Pride

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• Rosa Hubermann was sitting on the edge of the bed with her husband's accordion tied to her chest. Her fingers hovered above the keys. She did not move. She didn't ever appear to be breathing.

  Markus Zusak

  Husband, Moving, Keys

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• Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.

  Markus Zusak

  Father, Thinking, Papa

  Markus Zusak (2014). “Markus Zusak: The Book Thief & I Am the Messenger”, p.521, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• The English language is rather like a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib.

  Robert Burchfield

  Communication, Editors, Monsters

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• Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones. Papa was an accordion! But his bellows were all empty. Nothing went in and nothing came out.

  Markus Zusak

  Father, Eye, Men

  Markus Zusak (2013). “The Book Thief: Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition”, p.515, RH Childrens Books

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• The essential fault of surrealism is that it invents without discovering. To make a clam play an accordion is to invent not to discover. The observation of the unconscious, so far as it can be observed, should reveal things of which we have previously been unconscious, not the familiar things of which we have been conscious plus imagination.

  Wallace Stevens

  Play, Imagination, Essentials

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.259, Vintage

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• I am certain that over the course of your own life, you have noticed that people's rooms reflect their personalities. In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. These are items that are very precious and dear to me.

  Daniel Handler

  Song, Taken, Play

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• I've never had a musical career. So I think it's been unaffected. I play the accordion. In terms of thinking of it as a musical career, I think it's sort of like calling yourself an astronaut because you have a shiny suit.

  Daniel Handler

  Thinking, Play, Careers

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I once made the mistake of writing a story with David Corbett. The man smoked me. He can delineate the character and personality of an accordion in three strokes. I didn't even know accordions had character. This act of generosity and wisdom from a very good writer will help anyone who is staring at a blank page, any day, any time. Highly recommended.

  Luis Alberto Urrea

  Mistake, Writing, Character

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