Quartets Quotes

• I'll tell you what I would do in a shot if I could. I would sing in the barbershop quartet in The Music Man.

  Ned Beatty

  Men, Barbershop, Shots

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• The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

  T. S. Eliot

  Death, Communication, Fire

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 1 (1942)

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• One is that you have to take time, lots of time, to let an idea grow from within. The second is that when you sign on to something, there will be issues of trust, deep trust, the way the members of a string quartet have to trust one another.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Ideas, Issues, Way

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• There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Believe, Second Chance, Violin

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• Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

  T. S. Eliot

  Kindness, Reality, Atheism

  Four Quartets "Burnt Norton" pt. 1 (1936)

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• Only through time time is conquered

  T. S. Eliot

  1935 Four Quartets,'Burnt Norton', pt.2.

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• Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden.

  T. S. Eliot

  Love, Memories, Garden

  Four Quartets "Burnt Norton" pt. 1 (1936)

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• Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.

  T. S. Eliot

  Time, Past, Ifs

  Four Quartets "Burnt Norton" pt. 1 (1936)

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• Quick now, here, now, always- A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

  T. S. Eliot

  Fire, Flames, Rose

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 5 (1942)

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• Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought.

  T. S. Eliot

  Meditation, Waiting, Thyme

  1940 Four Quartets,'East Coker', pt.1.

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• So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

  T. S. Eliot

  Light, Generosity, Dancing

  1940 Four Quartets,'East Coker', pt.1.

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• The Detroit String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost.

  Bennett Cerf

  Night, Lasts, Detroit

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• The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started.

  T. S. Eliot

  Travel, Adventure, Science

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 5 (1942)

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• We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

  T. S. Eliot

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 5 (1942)

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• We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea.

  T. S. Eliot

  Children, Sea, Two

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 5 (1942)

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• For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

  T. S. Eliot

  Love, Meditation, Waiting

  T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.162, Faber & Faber

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• You are the music while the music lasts.

  T. S. Eliot

  Music, Dope, Jazz And Life

  Four Quartets "The Dry Salvages" pt. 5 (1941)

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• The end is where we start from.

  T. S. Eliot

  New Beginnings, Tunnels, New Start

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 5 (1942)

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• I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.

  T. S. Eliot

  Hope, Meditation, Waiting

  1940 Four Quartets,'East Coker', pt.1.

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• How could a New Yorker possibly take something called the Hollywood String Quartet seriously?

  Leonard Slatkin

  Hollywood, Strings, New Yorkers

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• music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts.

  T. S. Eliot

  Music, Thyme, Lasts

  Four Quartets "The Dry Salvages" pt. 5 (1941)

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• I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

  T. S. Eliot

  Love, Hope, Light

  1940 Four Quartets,'East Coker', pt.1.

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• What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

  T. S. Eliot

  Death, Dance, Recovery

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 5 (1942)

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• The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre- To be redeemed from fire by fire. Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire.

  T. S. Eliot

  Lying, Love Is, Fire

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 4 (1942)

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• There are three conditions which often look alike Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow: Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference, ... .

  T. S. Eliot

  Attachment, Self, Three

  T.S. Eliot (2009). “Collected Poems 1909-1962”, p.180, Faber & Faber

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