B Britten Quotes & Sayings

Caring what others think about us is normal. The desire to belong is basic to human nature. But in order to feel like you truly belong, you must accept yourself for who you are. This is critical to Fearless Living. — Rhonda Britten

When your commitment is to be loving regardless of the circumstances, there is no room for harsh words. You assert yourself not from a desire to control but from a desire to stand for who you are. — Rhonda Britten

Each precious moment of your life in which you are frozen with fear is a moment when you are not being all you can be. In the end, that hurts more than anything. Succeeding or failing does not determine if we are surviving or living. Rather it is in our ability to reach beyond our present self-imposed definition of who we are, and to risk becoming more, that we are able to feel fully alive. — Rhonda Britten

Fear is an affirmation of your growth. — Rhonda Britten

The first is based in fear, the second in fearlessness. — Rhonda Britten

Purpose directs passion and passion ignites purpose. — Rhonda Britten

Few of us boggle - though we should - at the fact that Louis Armstrong sang and played trumpet with similar panache, or that Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten were equally adept as composers, conductors and pianists. — Terry Teachout

I am an arrogant and impatient listener, but in the case of a few composers, a very few, when I hear a work I do not like, I am convinced that it is my own fault. Verdi is one of those composers. — Benjamin Britten

Living in intention through acceptance, responsibility, pro-active choice, and the willingness to be ordinary, will move fear aside and allow intuition to surface. All of those skills teach us to be inner focused and aware of who we are becoming. That is powerful. That changes lives. — Rhonda Britten

My mother sent me to dance and drama classes when I was young, and then I got a stage role in 'Set To Partners' when I was 12, followed by Benjamin Britten's 'Let's Make An Opera.' — Shirley Eaton

Britten's opera tends to see things in simpler terms. It portrays an Aschenbach who wants a richer form of sexual fulfillment, and who is hemmed in by the social conventions to which he subscribes. But Visconti's use of the Mahler Adagietto is perfect for what I take to be Aschenbach's sexual desire. — Philip Kitcher

Each moment is a moment of choice and your commitments keep you true to yourself, choice by choice. — Rhonda Britten

I was 16 when I got a scholarship to study classical composition at a conservatory. By that time I had already listened to Scottish folksong with my mother, sung in church choirs, and had sung solo with Benjamin Britten conducting. — Jack Bruce

Being willing makes you able. — Rhonda Britten

People who think of themselves as being entirely self-sufficient are, in fact, selfish. They nearly always proclaim their opinions as the only ones that count, their feelings as the only ones that matter, their ideas as the only ones worth thinking. — Samuel Britten

Music does not excite until it is performed. — Benjamin Britten

Risk is one of the keys that move you from fear to freedom. — Rhonda Britten

I want you,
As soon as you realize how bad this is for you,
You'd better disappear from here.
But until that day, I'm taking you.
You're mine! — Britten Thorne

I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music. — Benjamin Britten

We are afraid of failure, of ridicule, of being rejected. We are afraid we're not good enough. — Rhonda Britten

When I was doing 'Beau Travail,' I listened a lot to Benjamin Britten. — Claire Denis

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony. — Benjamin Britten

Sometime during the 1990s, when I was teaching philosophy at UCSD, my friend, colleague, and music teacher, Carol Plantamura, discussed the possibility of teaching a course together looking at ways in which various literary works (plays, stories, novels) had been treated as operas, and how different themes emerged in the opera and in its original. One of the pairings we planned to use was Mann's great novella and Britten's opera. Unfortunately, the course was never taught, but the idea remained with me. — Philip Kitcher

You don't have to earn or deserve love. You are love. Loving is never about how others treat you. It is always about how you are treating yourself. — Rhonda Britten

Forgiveness is not a one-time-only event. It is a process. — Rhonda Britten

Accepting what others see as your strengths is crucial to your continued growth. Compliments are a gift. They are an opportunity for you and another person to connect in a powerful, positive way. How did you handle the last compliment directed at you? Did you accept it? — Rhonda Britten

Katherine Anne [Porter] treated them like favored nephews; she even cooked meals for them. Unfortunately, however, beneath Christopher's deference and flattery, there was a steadily growing aggression. By her implicit claim to be the equal of Katherine Mansfield and even Virginia Woolf, Katherine Anne had stirred up Christopher's basic literary snobbery. How dare she, he began to mutter to himself, this vain old frump, this dressed-up cook in her arty finery, how dare she presume like this! And he imagined a grotesque scene in which he had to introduce her and somehow explain her to Virginia, Morgan [Forster] and the others . . . [t]hus Katherine Anne became the first of an oddly assorted collection of people who, for various reasons, made up their minds that they would never see Christopher again. The others: Charlie Chaplin, Benjamin Britten, Cole Porter, Lincoln Kirstein. — Christopher Isherwood

When you heed the calling of your heart, you are following your purpose. Having purpose in your life gives you the courage to do the things you are meant to do. When you are purpose driven, you have learned to listen to your intutition and never let no get in your way. — Rhonda Britten

One day I'll be able to relax a bit, and try and become a good composer. — Benjamin Britten

Yet if we are to live fully, we must love as though we've never been hurt, dream as though our hopes have never been dashed, and take steps toward the future as though life has never given us pain. — Rhonda Britten