Banjo Instrument Quotes & Sayings

I knew some of the army quite well. — Aung San Suu Kyi

There are a lot of chapters to the banjo's history. Part of it are the roots in Africa, where it's a more primitive instrument. Then it comes to the United States where it morphs into the slave music that they created here, which was very African in origin. — Bela Fleck

The banjo am the instrument for me. — Grandpa Jones

The banjo is such a happy instrument
you can't play a sad song on the banjo - it always comes out so cheerful. — Steve Martin

I have a problem about being nearly sixty: I keep waking up in the morning and thinking I'm thirty-one. — Elizabeth Janeway

Oh, as Dean says, nobody is free - never, except just for a few brief moments now and then, when the flash comes, or when as on my haystack night, the soul slips over into eternity for a little space. All the rest of our years we are slaves to something - traditions - conventions - ambitions - relations. — L.M. Montgomery

I like science fiction, I like fantasy, I like time travel, so I had this idea: What if you had a phone that could call into the past? — Rainbow Rowell

It's horrible for someone to listen to someone learning any instrument - when I was first learning the banjo, I used to have to go out and sit in the car, and even in the summertime I'd have to roll up the windows. Because you just couldn't practice a banjo or a fiddle with other people around. Unless they're being paid. — Steve Martin

If Mercy Underhill were any more perfect, it would take a long day's work to fall in love with her. But she has exactly enough faults to make it ridiculously easy. — Lyndsay Faye

I think it is very ironic that most people think that the banjo is a southern white instrument. It came from Africa and even for the first years that white people played banjo they would put on blackface. — Bela Fleck

I like to get wild. — Eleanor Mondale

Speaking more generally about what attracted him to bluegrass banjo, he said it was 'just the sound of the instrument, and then the fire, you know; the speed and all that. I was attracted by the intensity of it, really. And I was drawn to that incredible clarity-- when something is going along real fast and every note is absolutely clear. That, to me, was really amazing-- the Earl Scruggs instrumentals...' But Garcia refused to commit himself to just one style of music. Though bluegrass became his overriding obsession for about two years, he still dabbled in folk, old-timey and blues whenever the opportunity arose and there were players around. — Blair Jackson

You're saying the media is dangerous, immoral, and antidemocratic?" "Well . . . yes," Henderson said. "They don't recognize it in themselves, but they're basically criminals. In the classic sense of that word. — John Sandford

Perfection can be overdone; a rift in a lute relieves melodious monotony, and when discords cease to amuse, one can always have the instrument mended or buy a banjo. — Robert W. Chambers

And then Earl Scruggs comes along and transforms the banjo into a virtuosic modern instrument. For the first time, the Southern banjo style becomes the identity of the banjo, and everything from before is wiped off of people's consciousness by the power of that explosion. — Bela Fleck

Reality's kind of a medium, maybe greater than paper. We all want life to have the same texture that we read about in novels. — Why The Lucky Stiff

I wrote a letter to Thomas Pynchon asking, Can I have your permission to try to make an [adaptation] of your book? And I had no idea that he would answer me, because he's pretty elusive. But he did send a letter back that said, Yes, you can do that - as long as the only instrument in the opera is a banjo. I thought, That's an interesting way of saying No. — Laurie Anderson

There will never be another Mariano Rivera. He was a friend and a champion of a teammate. He really cared about the game of baseball, the way it was played, and whatever it took to win that night. — Jorge Posada

Someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to re-enter and riven ... I admire the authority of being on one's knees in front of an event. — Harold Brodkey

The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past. — Steve Martin

This crazy little party girl who loves to enjoy life actually has a purpose. So, that's really the core of why I've survived so many years and I can go and I can fall down and I can get back up. Why? Because I know why I'm here. That's the question that a lot of people need to answer when they do fall is, 'Why am I here?' If you can answer that question, you'll be able to dust yourself off and shine like a phoenix out of ashes. — Michelle Rodriguez

Under the ground, in Munich, Germany, two people stood and spoke in a basement. It sounds like the beginning of a joke:

'There's a Jew and a German standing in a basement, right?...'

This, however, was no joke. — Markus Zusak

My first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where I cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires myself. — Carl Sandburg

Earl Scruggs had this thing that it wasn't just the technique or even the instrument. It was him. There was this soulful quality that came through that made you - if you're somebody like me who was, I guess, supposed to play the banjo, it made you stop in your tracks, and you couldn't do anything until you got done hearing him play, and then immediately you'd have to go try and find a banjo. — Earl Scruggs