Best Glenn Gould Quotes & Sayings

It's a beautiful city, and the waterfront area is fantastic. I haven't had time to visit the theatre, but I find it remarkable that Toronto has the third-largest English-speaking theatre district in the world, after New York and London. I once noticed a fellow sitting on a bench, then I realized it was a statue of Glenn Gould. It's very realistic. — Donald Trump

Once I turned pro, so to speak, I put away childish things forever. — Glenn Gould

I don't know what the effective ratio would be, but I've always had some sort of intuition that for every hour you spend in the company of other human beings, you need "x" number of hours alone. Now, what "x" represents I don't really know; it might be two and seven-eighths or seven and two-eighths, but it is a substantial ratio. — Glenn Gould

A record is a concert without halls and a museum whose curator is the owner. — Glenn Gould

I believe that the only excuse we have for being musicians and for making music in any fashion, is to make it differently, to perform it differently, to establish the music's difference, vis-a-vis our own difference. — Glenn Gould

One does not play the piano with one's fingers, one plays the piano with one's mind. — Glenn Gould

Bill Gates is said to be Aspergian. Musician Glenn Gould is said to have been Aspergian, along with scientist Albert Einstein, actor Dan Aykroyd, writer Isaac Asimov, and movie director Alfred Hitchcock. As adults, none of those people would be described as disabled, but they were certainly eccentric and different. — John Elder Robison

The trouble begins when we start to be so impressed by the strategies of our systematized thought that we forget that it does relate to an obverse, that it is hewn from negation, that it is but very small security against the void of negation which surrounds it. — Glenn Gould

The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity. — Glenn Gould

The nature of the contrapuntal experience is that every note has to have a past and a future on the horizontal plane. — Glenn Gould

If an artist wants to use his mind for creative work, cutting oneself off from society is a necessary thing — Glenn Gould

Whenever one honestly defies a tradition, one becomes, in reality, the more responsible to it. — Glenn Gould

I tend to follow a very nocturnal sort of existence mainly because I don't much care for sunlight. Bright colors of any kind depress me, in fact. And my moods are more or less inversely related to the clarity of the sky, on any given day ... my private motto has always been that behind every silver lining there is a cloud. — Glenn Gould

I detest audiences - not in their individual components, but en masse I detest audiences. I think they're a force of evil. It seems to me rule of mob law. — Glenn Gould

Mozart died too late rather than too soon. — Glenn Gould

I don't approve of people who watch television, but I am one of them. — Glenn Gould

I work to Glenn Gould in the morning and go to sleep listening to Parsifal. — Patti Smith

I always assumed everybody shared my love for overcast skies. It came as a shock to find out that some people prefer sunshine. — Glenn Gould

My moods are inversely related to the clarity of the sky. — Glenn Gould

Those are terrible people who don't like Glenn Gould ... I will have nothing to do with such people, they are dangerous people. — Thomas Bernhard

The world moves along at such a fast clip that we have little patience when things are slow, whether it's the line at a supermarket or Internet access. We've become intolerant of those things that cannot be accelerated or skipped entirely. I can't speed up the foundation work for a building, nor can I expect to play piano like Glenn Gould just because I want to. — Donald J. Trump

U201Che G-minor Symphony consists of eight remarkable measures surrounded by a half-hour of banality. — Glenn Gould

If I had a Volkswagon Beetle. I'd paint the front to resemble Glenn Langdon in War Of The Colossal Beast. Why? Two words: The Ladies. — Dana Gould

The purpose of art is the lifelong construction of a state of wonder. — Glenn Gould

There is a craft and a power in listening. — Glenn Gould

I've always had a sort of intuition that for every hour you spend with other human beings you need x number of hours alone. Now, what that x represents I don't really know, whether it be two and seven-eights or seven and two-eights, but it's a substantial ratio. — Glenn Gould

I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach. — Glenn Gould

The prerequisite of contrapuntal art, more conspicuous in the work of Bach than in that of any other composer, is an ability to conceive a priori of melodic identities which when transposed, inverted, made retrograde, or transformed rhythmically will yet exhibit, in conjunction with the original subject matter, some entirely new but completely harmonious profile. — Glenn Gould

Isolation is the indispensable component of human happiness. — Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould was my hero. Glenn Gould was my idol. I loved him. — Warren Zevon