Debussy Music Quotes & Sayings

Music is in the space between the notes. — Claude Debussy

Debussy
A pretty girl with one blue eye and one brown one. — H.L. Mencken

Do not allow the accents in the brass to produce space between the notes. — Claude Debussy

I believe that man must learn to live without those consolations called religious, which is own intelligence must by now have told him belong to the childhood of the race. Philosophy can really give us nothing permanent to believe either; it is too rich in answers, each canceling out the rest. The quest for Meaning is foredoomed. Human life 'means' nothing. But this is not to say that it is not worth living. What does a Debussy Arabesque 'mean,' or a rainbow or a rose? A man delights in all of these, knowing himself to be no more
a wisp of music and a haze of dreams dissolving against the sun. Man has only his own two feet to stand on, his own human trinity to see him through: Reason, Courage, and Grace. And the first plus the second equals the third. — Peter De Vries

Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light. — Claude Debussy

When I was younger, I used to do that a lot: I would hear a part of a song that would really relax me and then put it on repeat. That would send me to sleep. It was quite obvious classical music, people like Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel. — King Krule

He was the incomparable painter of mystery, silence, and the infinite, of the passing cloud, and the sunlit shimmer of the waves-subleties which none before him had been capable of suggesting. — Claude Debussy

I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it. — Claude Debussy

On those who overanalyze his music: When you tear the wings off a butterfly, it is no longer a butterfly — Claude Debussy

It is necessary to abandon yourself completely, and let the music do as it will with you. All people come to music to seek oblivion. — Claude Debussy

Do you think Duke Ellington didn't listen to Debussy? Louis Armstrong loved opera, did you know that? Name me a jazz pianist who wasn't influenced by European music! — Dave Brubeck

There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law. I love music passionately. And because l love it, I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it. It is a free art gushing forth, an open-air art boundless as the elements, the wind, the sky, the sea. It must never be shut in and become an academic art. — Claude Debussy

The century of aeroplanes deserves its own music. As there are no precedents, I must create anew. — Claude Debussy

Music is the silence between the notes. — Claude Debussy

For me, playing music while I write is important. Several of the romantic scenes in 'Paris' were written with Debussy's 'String Quartet,' his 'L'Apres-midi d'une Faune,' or Canteloube's 'Songs of the Auvergne' playing in the background. — Edward Rutherfurd

Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes. — Claude Debussy

Although I am basically self taught, I consider Debussy my teacher - the most important elements are colour, light and shadow. — Toru Takemitsu

But music, don't you know, is a dream from which the veils have been lifted. It's not even the expression of a feeling, it's the feeling itself. — Claude Debussy

If I am not making music, I have no reason for existing. — Claude Debussy

The music I desire must be supple enough to adapt itself to the lyrical effusions of the soul and the fantasy of dreams. — Claude Debussy

My mother was a very talented pianist, and she was a music teacher who hated to teach music, actually, but she loved to play, so I was brought up with Chopin, Debussy and Mozart. — Peter C. Doherty

Anyone who calls my music "impressionist" is an imbecile. — Claude Debussy

I am more and more convinced that music is not, in essence, a thing which can be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms. — Claude Debussy

People come to music to seek oblivion: is that not also a form of deception? — Claude Debussy

Peter Townsend Music is the silence between the notes.. So could it be said that dance is the stillness between the steps? — Claude Debussy

I have no doubt that there are great people about though ... the thing of it is, nothing to this day moves me like classical music (Debussy, Vaughn Williams). — Gary Lucas

Music begins where words are powerless to express. Music is made for the inexpressible. I want music to seem to rise from the shadows and indeed sometimes to return to them. — Claude Debussy

Collect impressions. Don't be in a hurry to write them down. Because that's something music can do better than painting: it can centralise variations of colour and light within a single picture a truth generally ignored, obvious as it is. — Claude Debussy

Erik Satie does not say the opposite of Debussy; he says the same thing only the other way round. — Jose Bergamin

The century of airplanes has a right to its own music. — Claude Debussy