Pianist Quotes - Page 4

• Painting is something that you need to do, if not every day, then certainly most days. It is almost like being a pianist: if you stop, you lose something.

  John Berger

  Needs, Painting, Ifs

  "John Berger: a life in writing" by Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. April 22, 2011.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• In order to even begin to learn how to play his instrument, it takes the guitarist weeks to build calluses on his fingertips; it takes the saxophonist months to strengthen his lip so that he might play his instrument for only a five-minute stretch; it can take the pianist years to develop dual hand and multiple finger coordination. Why do writers assume they can just “write” with no training whatsoever-and then expect, on their first attempt, to be published internationally? What makes them think they're so much inherently greater, need so much less training than any other artists?

  Noah Lukeman

  Writing, Artist, Thinking

  Noah Lukeman (2010). “The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile”, p.72, Oxford University Press, USA

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I couldn't say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone.

  Anthony Hopkins

  Brain, Stones, Matter

  10 Copy quote

• My dad's family were political and he was always a theatrical creature, whereas my mum is really musical and her father was the touring pianist with Nat King Cole. My family was an explosive mixture of politics, religion and music - no wonder I turned out how I did.

  Grace Jones

  Kings, Dad, Father

  7 Copy quote

• My father was a banker, but he was an independent spirit. He was a very good pianist and very much into music.

  Yoko Ono

  Father, Independent, Bankers

  "Sean Lennon And Yoko Ono: DNA Memory". Interview with Renee Montagne, www.npr.org. November 26, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 'The Pianist' is a movie I could watch over and over again.

  Vidal Sassoon

  Watches

  4 Copy quote

• My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.

  Carly Simon

  Mother, Father, Singers

  4 Copy quote

• When I was very young, I remember my mother telling me about a friend of hers in Germany, a pianist who played a symphony that wasn't permitted, and the Germans came up on stage and broke every finger on her hands. I grew up with stories of Nazis breaking the fingers of Jews.

  Steven Spielberg

  Mother, Hands, Symphony

  5 Copy quote

• You hear the same work by different orchestras, different conductors, violinists, pianists, singers, and slowly, the work reveals itself and begins to live deeper in you.

  David Ogden Stiers

  Different, Orchestra, Singers

  8 Copy quote

• If you lock me in the room with a piano teacher for a year I might be able to knock out a rendition of 'Roll Out The Barrel,' but will I ever be a concert pianist? No.

  Alan Sugar

  Teacher, Years, Piano

  4 Copy quote

• My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.

  Amy Tan

  Jobs, Taken, Doctors

  "Author of The Joy Luck Club". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 28, 1996.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ewan McGregor is a very genial and entertaining man, and Pierce Brosnan is possibly the nicest man in the world. Actually, it was quite a genial set The Ghost Writer, but the weather and the colors and the actual surroundings were oppressive. But it was a created atmosphere. What was so striking is that Roman Polanski had his crew from The Pianist, and we were shooting in Berlin, so there were German and Polish and French people, and I was just sort of enjoying being in this mix of people, all kind of rubbing along together. That felt good.

  Olivia Williams

  Men, People, Atmosphere

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is scurrilously called ragtime is an invention that is here to stay. That is now conceded by all classes of musicians... All publication s masquerading under the name of ragtime are not the genuine article... That real ragtime of the higher class is rather difficult to play is a painful truth which most pianists have discovered. Syncopations are no indication of light or trashy music... Joplin ragtime is destroyed by careless or imperfect rendering, and very often players lost the effect entirely by playing too fast.

  Scott Joplin

  Real, Player, Light

  41 Copy quote

• If I had my life to live over, I wish I could be a great pianist or something.

  Woody Allen

  Wish, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. ... I'm probably writing music now for the same reason as I started writing songs when I was 14-to meet women. ... If you make music for the human needs you have within yourself, then you do it for all humans who need the same things. You enrich humanity with the profound expression of these feelings. ... My songs are like my kids.

  Billy Joel

  Song, Kids, Writing

  5 Copy quote

• Jazz is a constant theme in my life. My father is a jazz pianist, and from an early age I have been surrounded by it.

  Nat Wolff

  Father, Age, Jazz

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wanted to be a concert pianist at Carnegie Hall; that is what I wanted to do from really early on. I actually was the accompanist for a couple of the musicals I was in growing up.

  Kirsten Nelson

  Growing Up, Couple, Carnegie

  16 Copy quote

• If you want to become a concert pianist, do it every day. You want to be a writer, do it every day. You want to become depressed, think depressing thoughts every day. You want to become an optimist, think a cheerful thought every day. Do it every day.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Depressing, Thinking, Cheerful

  26 Copy quote

• Classical pianist Awadagin Pratt. I first heard this eccentric and introverted performer when I was living in the Midwest. He was playing Brahms ballades - haunting.

  Daniel Breaker

  Midwest, Haunting, Eccentric

  9 Copy quote

• From early on there were two things that filled my life - music and storytelling, both of them provoked by my father. He was a jazz pianist and also a very good storyteller, an avid reader. He passed both those interests on to me.

  Athol Fugard

  Father, Avid, Two

  9 Copy quote

• Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven.

  Irwin Shaw

  Sight, Soldier, Hammers

  4 Copy quote

• Pianists call me a composer, composers call me a pianist. The classicists think me a futurist, and the futurists call me a reactionary.

  Anton Rubinstein

  Thinking, Composer, Call Me

  8 Copy quote

• I would have given my right arm to have been a pianist.

  Bobby Robson

  Funny, Music, Motivation

  4 Copy quote

• Pianists don't argue too much generally because we have a hard enough time just getting things right. Arguing is for string players.

  Emanuel Ax

  Player, Enough Time, Too Much

  9 Copy quote

• My father was a stone mason, and a talented amateur pianist and vocalist.

  John E. Walker

  Father, Stones, Masons

  21 Copy quote