Herrmann Quotes & Sayings

Your views are as narrow as your tie. — Bernard Herrmann

I remember seeing the first Astaire-Rogers musical on television, and I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. It dawned on me that you don't have to wear a cowboy hat to be a man. — Edward Herrmann

As a composer I might class myself as a Neo-Romantic, inasmuch as I have always regarded music as a highly personal and emotional form of expression. I like to write music which takes its inspiration from poetry, art and nature. I do not care for purely decorative music. Although I am in sympathy with modern idioms, I abhor music which attempts nothing more than the illustration of a stylistic fad. And in using modern techniques, I have tried at all times to subjugate them to a larger idea or a grander human feeling. — Bernard Herrmann

Growing up as a kid in Detroit, way back, there was a movie station that would show old kinescope reproductions of old movies, and I remember seeing Bela Lugosi for the first time and being duly frightened out of my wits. — Edward Herrmann

Cats are hard to train, but they can train them. — Edward Herrmann

The French suffered such catastrophic losses in the First World War. It really was the end of them as a great world power, although they, quote, 'won.' — Edward Herrmann

Flirting with the dark side has always had it's fascination. Because you learn, and there's wisdom there. Escpecially with the post-Freudian era with the young, the shadow is ninety percent gold. You hold treasures there that you need to learn about yourself to be a whole person. — Edward Herrmann

I like sunny stories. You know, my favorite girls in the '50s were Debbie Reynolds, Doris Day, and Esther Williams. — Edward Herrmann

What I love more than anything is Jerry Goldsmith's 80's music and Bernard Herrmann's genre music from the 50's and 60's. — Bear McCreary

Actors are always grabbing each other on stage, looking in each other's eyes, making a moment so private, the audience doesn't know what they're doing. — Edward Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann was a genius, a great, great composer. — Michel Hazanavicius

I'm an actor. I'll take a lead if it's offered. The really good actors can fill a character, no matter what the role is. A good leading man is a character actor; a good character actor can be a leading man. — Edward Herrmann

Highway One, Antarctica is a wonderful debut by a writer with razor-sharp insights to the human condition. Justin Herrmann is a voice I hope to hear more from, and soon. Excellent collection. — Jo-Ann Mapson

I have not drawn a very rosy picture of the magician. I did not intend to do so. To the novice entering the life and promising himself ease, indolence, and wealth, I should say, Don't! — Alexander Herrmann

At your next book club meeting, picture me sitting quietly in the corner, taking notes on your preferences. Imagine the next day you get an email from me trying to sell you a new grill - or a book - or accessories for your Glock. That's the Amazon/Goodreads deal. It's appalling. But everywhere in the press, you'll read about the genius of Amazon.
(Michael Herrmann and the booksellers of Gibson's) — G.R. Reader

Automobiles have always been part of my life, and I'm sure they always will be. What is it about them that moves me? The sound of a great engine, the unity and uniqueness of an automobile's engineering and coachwork, the history of the company and the car, and, of course, the sheer beauty of the thing. — Edward Herrmann

I went to Hollywood. I put the action in Hollywood. I watched a lot of movies, maybe 100 or something close to that. I have tons of DVDs now at home. I don't know what to do with them because they're not useful anymore. My kids never watched them. I read a lot of autobiographies, listened to a lot of music by classical era composers like Franz Waxman, Max Steiner, Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman and Leonard Bernstein. I listened to only that kind of music the entire time I was writing, even at home. — Michel Hazanavicius

Humor is not far from my vocabulary. — Edward Herrmann

Most of us assume we are seeing the world the way it really is. — Ned Herrmann

You ingest the automobile in the very air of Detroit. Or at least you did in the 1940s and 1950s. — Edward Herrmann

How many times can you play an action character, or a quirky romantic? Every actor has to find his own way to make each character unique. — Edward Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann used to write all his scores by himself. So did Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky. I don't understand why this happens in the movie industry. — Ennio Morricone

Herrmann Pidoux and Armand Trousseau stated 'Disease exists within us, because of us, and through us', Pasteur did not entirely disagree, 'This is true for certain diseases', he wrote cautiously, only to add immediately: 'I do not think that it is true for all of them'. — Louis Pasteur

I was warned the camels can be nasty, especially the young ones. I was warned to give it a wide berth. — Edward Herrmann

If I'm off the stage after two or three years I get itchy and I have to get back onstage. — Edward Herrmann

Creativity in its fullest sense includes both generating an idea and manifesting it- making something happen as a result. — Ned Herrmann

There is always beauty to be found, even in the darkness. — Deanna Herrmann

A company can seize extra-ordinary opportunities only if it is very good at the ordinary operations. — Marcel Herrmann Telles

I thought cars were essential ingredients of life itself. — Edward Herrmann

The magician depends for the success of his art upon the credulity of the people. Whatever mystifies, excites curiosity; whatever in turn baffles this curiosity, works the marvelous. — Alexander Herrmann

Anyone who believes he has caught him in a fantastic lie is apt to find out that the fantastic story is the truth. And some unimportant statement, like just having bought an evening paper a half-hour ago, is the lie."

--On Orson Welles — Bernard Herrmann

I think it's much richer and much more fun to be an artist than to be anything else. I can't think of a better life than acting. — Edward Herrmann

I feel that music on the screen can seek out and intensify the inner thoughts of the characters. It can invest a scene with terror, grandeur, gaiety, or misery. It can propel narrative switftly forward, or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry. Finally, it is the communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping all into one single experience. — Bernard Herrmann

With Hitchcock I had little relationship. I was called to replace Bernard Herrmann, his favorite composer, in Torn Curtain, after the bitter fight between them. — Maurice Jarre