Opera Quotes - Page 9

• I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.

  J. D. Salinger

  Liars, Memorable, Magazines

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

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• My Heart I'm not going to cry all the time nor shall I laugh all the time, I don't prefer one "strain" to another. I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie, not just a sleeper, but also the big, overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as alive as the vulgar. And if some aficionado of my mess says "That's not like Frank!," all to the good! I don't wear brown and grey suits all the time, do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera, often. I want my feet to be bare, I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--you can't plan on the heart, but the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

  Frank O'Hara

  Running, Heart, Feet

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.231, Univ of California Press

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• You can learn more by going to the opera than you ever can by reading Emerson. Like that there are two sexes.

  David Markson

  Sex, Reading, Two

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• Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must need pity the Opera ghost.

  Gaston Leroux

  Heart, Play, Unhappy

  Gaston Leroux (2016). “THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (Mystery & Horror Series): Gothic Classic Based on True Events at the Paris Opera”, p.201, e-artnow

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• He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gauged his ability to love.

  Ann Patchett

  Opportunity, Tchaikovsky, True Life

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• What are our conductors giving us year after year? Only fresh corpses. Over these beautifully embalmed sonatas, toccatas, symphonies and operas the public dance the jitterbug. Night and day without let the radio drowns us in a hog-wash of the most nauseating, sentimental ditties. From the churches comes the melancholy dirge of the dead Christ, a music which is no more sacred than a rotten turnip.

  Henry Miller

  Night, Symphony, Years

  Henry Miller (1945). “The Air-conditioned Nightmare”, [New York] : New directions

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• For all the days of our lives," we finished and I felt a little like a character in one of my grandma's soap operas.

  Ally Carter

  Grandma, Character, Littles

  Ally Carter (2007). “I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You”, Hyperion

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• In order to get the things I want, it helps me to pretend I’m a figure in a daytime drama, a schemer. Soap opera characters make emphatic pronouncements. They ball up their fists and state their goals out loud. ‘I will destroy Buchanan Enterprises,’ they say. ‘Phoebe Wallingford will pay for what she’s done to our family.’ Walking home with the back half of the twelve-foot ladder, I turned to look in the direction of Hugh’s loft. ‘You will be mine,’ I commanded.

  David Sedaris

  Drama, Home, Character

  David Sedaris (2000). “Me talk pretty one day”

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• Little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow's peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on who he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people.

  Terry Pratchett

  Cutting, Talking, Shoes

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• My family was very supportive of whatever I wanted because my grandfather was an opera singer. My dad's dad. So my dad has an appreciation for the arts, and he let me choose my own path.

  Tony Hale

  Appreciation, Art, Dad

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• The performances of my works in the last 10 years are probably equal to all the previous years put together. There are so many venues now and there is a completely new public for opera that's grown up outside of the traditional core opera public.

  Carlisle Floyd

  Years, Together, Lasts

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• The music of this opera (Madame Butterfly) was dictated to me by God. I was merely instrumental in getting it on paper and communicating it to the public.

  Giacomo Puccini

  Butterfly, Paper, Communicate

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• I started performing opera when I was 10 years old. I didn't perform as Zola Jesus until I was probably 18.

  Zola Jesus

  Jesus, Years, Zola

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• As a child, I was always making sound; it was a compulsion. I loved to scream and yell and sing; it freed me from all the thoughts in my head. I begged for opera lessons because opera singing is the most formidable, most emotional way to use your voice.

  Zola Jesus

  Children, Emotional, Voice

  Interview with Elliott Sharp, www.avclub.com. April 25, 2011.

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• I never pictured myself as a telenovela galan - never imagined Id be in a soap opera.

  Jencarlos Canela

  Soap, Soap Operas

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• Politics, poverty, riches, etc - these are but backdrops for the grand cinema, the opera: the glory of your life. Sure, change the backdrops, make them better, but it is this inside-ness that matters most. Nothing else, at the last breath, matters, but your very own poetry. The glory of living.

  Alex Ebert

  Cinema, Matter, Riches

  FaceBook post by Alex Ebert from Sep 16, 2013

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• The most important part of a city is its people. In fact, people for me are like little cities. When you meet someone, it's like you've found a new city to explore. You take a tram, visit the museums and operas and cafes.

  Sarnath Banerjee

  Museums, Cities, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Everyone in my family is an artist. Both my parents are painters and my mom's an opera singer. I was never shown any other way to process life.

  Aleksa Palladino

  Mom, Artist, Parent

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• Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase 'Auld Lang Syne' exceedingly expressive? I shall give you the verses on the other sheet. The words of 'Auld Lang Syne' are good, but the music is an old air, the rudiments of the modern tune of that name. ... Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings. ... Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure thrill the deepest notes of woe. ... Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

  Robert Burns

  Cutting, Men, Scotch

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• Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.

  Robert Burns

  Men, Dying, Honest

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• Be careful how you choose your enemy, for you will come to resemble him. The moment you adapt your enemy's methods your enemy has won. The rest is suffering and historical opera.

  Michael Ventura

  Historical, Enemy, Suffering

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• If you think that there are actually covers that we haven't done on 'Glee' that I could then put on an album... We've done everything! Pretty soon we're just going to have to start doing opera and stuff on the show.

  Lea Michele

  Thinking, Glee, Albums

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• People don't want to pay 8 or 9 dollars to go see a problem that they have in their life, on screen. They pay to get away from that. That's why they watch soap operas

  Omar Epps

  People, Watches, Dollars

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• Once, when we were playing at the Apollo Theater, Holiday was working a block away at the Harlem Opera House. Some of us went over between shows to catch her, and afterwards we went backstage. I did something then, and I still don't know if it was the right thing to do—I asked her for her autograph.

  Ella Fitzgerald

  Block, Holiday, House

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• I think it was just an opera. Now, you go to opera, you expect to see and hear what the opera is. So, it was Catfish Row. It was singers. Marvelous voices. It didn't make no difference what color they were

  Cab Calloway

  Thinking, Color, Voice

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