Igor Quotes & Sayings

Composition is selective improvisation. — Igor Stravinsky

There are no musically untalented people. — Igor Levit

Even in name, he seems like a Victorian oddity. "Igor, fetch 'the Crouch' from the catacombs, we're going to the graveyard". — Russell Brand

What force is more potent than love? — Igor Stravinsky

Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn. — Igor Stravinsky

It is far easier to debate about realistic painting than to paint one. — Igor Babailov

I always talk about the hierarchy of art, and I always put music on the top of everything, because it's so immaterial. — Igor Levit

Different instructors' approaches may 'clash' with each other and result in confusion and unclear direction for the students. It's like attempting to learn how to write using both hands at the same time. How far would you go? — Igor Babailov

I'm an Igor, thur. We don't athk quethtionth."
"Really? Why not?"
"I don't know, thur. I didn't athk. — Terry Pratchett

Perhaps one of the most essential exercises in learning to paint is the copying of master works in the museums. — Igor Babailov

People! Please. Listen. Our life, our bodies are the most authentic clinical record ever! Why do you have to ask for any other one, alien, fake, distorted by illegible handwriting belonging to someone who has never been us and has never tried to understand us? Do you think that is right? — Igor Eliseev

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators. — Igor Stravinsky

Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle. — Igor Sikorsky

I'm not a star. I'll never be a Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley or a Ray Charles. I'm just an imitator, man. I'm doing a very bad imitation on the bass of Jerry Jemmott, Bernard Odum, Jimmy Fielder, Jimmy Blanton, Igor Stravinsky, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, James Brown, Charlie Parker ... the cats, man. I'm just backing up the cats. — Jaco Pastorius

At times it is so enjoyable to mire your neighbor into the filth you already got stuck in long ago! — Igor Eliseev

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God. — Igor Stravinsky

It always turns out this way: at first people idolize you, swear to be your faithful friend forever and then spit in your tea and in your soul, too. — Igor Eliseev

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead. — Igor Stravinsky

Recordings of Georgian folk polyphonic songs makes a great musical impression. They are recorded in a tradition of active reproduction of Georgian folk music the origin of which begins from ancient time. It is a wonderful finding and can give to the performance much more than all the modem music can ... Yodel or "Krimanchuli" as it is called in Georgia is the best song which I have ever heard. ["America" magazine, No 23 1967] — Igor Stravinsky

The only really sane person in there is Igor, and possibly the turnip. And I'm not sure about the turnip. — Terry Pratchett

Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament. — Igor Stravinsky

Conformism is so hot on the heels of the mass-produced avant-garde that the 'ins' and the 'outs' change places with the speed of mach 3. — Igor Stravinsky

I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust. — Igor Stravinsky

Maybe the consequences of someone's unreason can be remedied only with a new unreason? — Igor Eliseev

They are just a strange whim, kink of nature, deviation that doesn't seem to exist but is encountered every day. — Igor Eliseev

The one true comment on a piece of music is another piece of music. — Igor Stravinsky

Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also. — Igor Stravinsky

Can you just saw his arm off while we're here and get me loose? (Amanda)
I could do that, but he needs his more. I'd cut yours off before I did his. (Tate)
Oh, great, what are you, his Igor? (Amanda)
Wrong movie, Igor was Frankenstein's flunky. Renfield is the one you're thinking of, and no, I'm not Renfield. Name's Tate Bennett. Parish coroner. (Tate) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I think that the tying of the Montenegrin economy with the euro is a much better option than the adventure of printing our own currency. — Igor Luksic

Even as a child I was fascinated by death, not in a spiritual sense, but in an aesthetic one. A hamster or guinea pig would pass away, and, after burying the body, I'd dig it back up: over and over, until all that remained was a shoddy pelt. It earned me a certain reputation, especially when I moved on to other people's pets. "Igor," they called me. "Wicked, spooky." But I think my interest was actually fairly common, at least among adolescent boys. At that age, death is something that happens only to animals and grandparents, and studying it is like a science project. — David Sedaris

Composition is frozen improvisation. — Igor Stravinsky

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. — Igor Stravinsky

it seemed to Igor that trouble hit Mr. Lipwig like a big wave hitting a flotilla of ducks. Afterward, there was no wave but there was still a lot of duck. "It — Terry Pratchett

We musicians play in Time and with Time, but sometimes it is Time that plays with us. One day, unpredictably, the evolution of culture makes real an oeuvre which has lain in obscurity. — Igor Markevitch

And where jazz music was concerned, there was a saying, Segodnia on igraet dzhaz, a zavtra rodinu prodast: Today you play jazz, tomorrow you betray the motherland." Igor, — Michael Segell

The helicopter appeared so reluctant to fly forward that we even considered turning the pilot's seat around and letting it fly backward. — Igor Sikorsky

It is sinful for students to badmouth their teachers and sinful for teachers to mislead their students. — Igor Babailov

How perfectly evil spirit and beauty can combine in one person, harmonically supplementing each other. — Igor Eliseev

It was a dog. Or several dogs rolled, as it were, into one. There were four legs, and they were nearly all the same length although not, Agnes noted, all the same color. There was one head, although the left ear was black and pointed while the right ear was brown and white and flopped. It was a very enthusiastic animal in the department of slobber. "Thith ith Thcrapth," said Igor, fighting to get to his feet in a hail of excited paws. "He'th a thilly old thing." "Scraps ... yes," said Nanny. "Good name. Good name." "He'th theventy-eight yearth old," said Igor, leading the way down a winding staircase. "Thome of him. — Terry Pratchett

Regardless of our ambitions to become part of the E.U., we have to keep in mind that Turkey is also a very strong voice that can represent the needs of our region in wider terms in global platforms. — Igor Luksic

We can neither put back the clock nor slow down our forward speed, and as we are already flying pilotless, on instrument controls, it is even too late to ask where we are going. — Igor Stravinsky

By the mid-1990s the number of people with some experience of using computers was many orders of magnitude greater than in the 1960s. In the Kasparov defeat they recognized that here was a great triumph for programmers, but not one that may compete with the human intelligence that helps us to lead our lives. — Igor Aleksander

The resolution has made a real threat of war go away and opens the way for further work in the interests of a political- diplomatic settlement of the situation around Iraq. — Igor Ivanov

Is it so hard to offer your help and sympathy to somebody in grief? It takes a little to make one step, but, in an inexplicable manner, it stretches into thousands of kilometers. All of us are full of empathy and consolation but always prefer to express it from a distance. — Igor Eliseev

Envy derives from insecurity. — Igor Babailov

We have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it. — Igor Stravinsky

To continue in one path is to go backward. — Igor Stravinsky

Musical talent is maybe something, but there are no unmusical people. You're moved by music. It's total rubbish to say, "Oh, I'm unmusical." It doesn't exist; it's ridiculous. — Igor Levit

My music is best understood by children and animals. — Igor Stravinsky

A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares. — Igor Stravinsky

The purpose of Art Education is to teach you how to draw. — Igor Babailov

The profound meaning of music's essential aim ... is to produce a communion, a union of man with his fellow man with the Supreme Being — Igor Stravinsky

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. — Igor Stravinsky

Resolution 1441 does not give anyone the right to an automatic use of force. Russia believes that the Iraqi problem should be regulated by the Security Council, which carries the main responsibility for ensuring international security. — Igor Ivanov

We're all God's children. We are all special people, and the Pope is no different. — Igor Babailov

I have one guy that I really have to talk to once a day, and if I don't talk to him once a day, I really feel like something is not completed. This is, like, an attraction story. — Igor Levit

Portrait painters' mission is to portray people and the beauty of Creation. They should stay clear of ego ... — Igor Babailov

Usually you lose your dearest people long before their death. — Igor Eliseev

Baton technique is to a conductor what fingers are to a pianist. — Igor Markevitch

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live. — Igor Stravinsky

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending. — Igor Stravinsky

In visual art it's better once to see, than one hundred times to hear. — Igor Babailov

Keep on dreaming your better self. — Igor Goldkind

Biers was where the undead drank. And when Igor the barman was asked for a Bloody Mary, he didn't mix a metaphor. — Terry Pratchett

Could be worse ... could be raining."

- Igor — Mel Brooks

I'm not good at texting because I'm an older generation, old school. And nobody ever listens to the answering machine anymore. It's terrible. — Igor Levit

You can't build a wall round a village.
The sun and the wind
will always find their way in. — Igor Goldkind

I'm not the kind of actor who runs around and insists on being called Stravinsky by everybody, and my family has to call me Igor. I'm not that kind of actor. I think that's pretentious. — Mads Mikkelsen

I clearly saw us from outside, like in a picture: we are not people, we are a road sign warning: "Stop and thank luck because such fate didn't befall you as befell us, and only then keep going your way". — Igor Eliseev

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. — Igor Stravinsky

We cannot describe sound, but we cannot forget it either. — Igor Stravinsky

It is worthy of note that killing oneself and killing someone is not the same. For the former, one should lose one's faith, for the latter, one should never have any. — Igor Eliseev

Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it. — Igor Stravinsky

The further one separates himself from the precepts of the Christian Church, the further one distances himself from the truth. Only God can create. I make music from music. — Igor Stravinsky

The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation. — Igor Stravinsky

It is the transcendent (or 'abstract' or 'self-contained') nature of music that the new so called concretism
Pop Art, eighteen-hour slices-of-reality films, musique concrete
opposes. But instead of bringing art and reality closer together, the new movement merely thins out the distinction. — Igor Stravinsky

When I discovered that I had been made custodian of this gift, in my earliest childhood, I pledged myself to God to be worthy of it, but I have received uncovenanted mercies all my life. The custodian has too often kept faith on his all-too-worldly terms. — Igor Stravinsky

Suffering through his classes, the young Igor steeped himself in angst. He would later describe his childhood as 'a period of waiting for the moment when I could send everyone and everything connected with it to hell. — Jonah Lehrer

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also. — Igor Stravinsky

I never understood the need for a "live" audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one. — Igor Stravinsky

People can text with two hands and are so fast and I am not ... I just have that one person I want to talk to. — Igor Levit

Insecurity prevents young artists from 'flying' and older artists from being 'down to earth.' Young artists should work on their confidence and the older ones on their humility. — Igor Babailov

Nothing is likely about masterpieces, least of all whether there will be any. — Igor Stravinsky

One lives by memory . . . and not by truth. — Igor Stravinsky

All music is nothing more than a succession of impulses that converge towards a definite point of repose. — Igor Stravinsky

Art postulates communion, and the artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself. — Igor Stravinsky

Probably, sooner or later every person founds oneself to be needless. — Igor Eliseev

Through the 'It's About Ability' campaign and with parents and other members of society, we have created a social family for children with disabilities. — Igor Luksic

My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit. — Igor Stravinsky

Every Hungarian wishes to die an elegant gentleman — Igor Janke

Indeed, people are equal only in one thing: each of us is gifted a life, other differences are only notional; and what to do with one's own life is at everyone's discretion. The time has come to bestow upon us the most exalted gifts of serenity and joy. We silently trudged back upstairs. I fancied that I heard steps creaking and groaning throughout the entire stairway as if hundreds of invisible feet were stepping on them along with us. We were still alive but among the ghosts already. — Igor Eliseev

I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music. — Igor Stravinsky

Art Education is as important for a realist artist as an Alphabet is to learn a language. — Igor Babailov

Though many people said there is no joint border between Turkey and Montenegro, it feels like we are next to each other. We are in the same neighborhood. — Igor Luksic

You may not be aware of this but Leonard Bernstein won another award, for explaining the music of Igor Stravinsky ... to Igor Stravinsky! — Victor Borge

What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to chance. — Igor Stravinsky

Hurry? I have no time to hurry. — Igor Stravinsky

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos? — Igor Stravinsky

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received. — Igor Stravinsky

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey. — Igor Stravinsky