Ives Quotes & Sayings

If a poet knows more about a horse than he does about heaven, he might better stick to the horse, and some day the horse may carry him into heaven. — Charles Ives

In any case, Ives encouraged me to go into music even though he himself had such a hard time being a composer. — Elliott Carter

The future of music may not lie entirely in music itself, but rather in the way it encourages and extends, rather than limits the aspirations and ideals of the people, in the way it makes itself a part with the finer things that humanity does and dreams of. — Charles Ives

Verse comedy is interesting to me because of the challenge of writing in rhymed couplets, which is not a form that's usually amenable to English, yet to me it gives great possibility for comedy. — David Ives

The word 'beauty' is as easy to use as the word 'degenerate.' Both come in handy when one does or does not agree with you — Charles Ives

Criticism will survive even if no one's paying for it. Obviously it's better if people are paying for it. But the fact that artists weren't able to make a living from their work hasn't detracted from the quality of that work. Charles Ives was the second greatest composer in American history and he worked in insurance his whole life. — Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

I'm a law-abiding man. That is, if there's any law to abide by. — Burl Ives

Writing a play, you start with less, so more is demanded of you. It's as if you have to not only write a symphony, but invent the instruments as well. — David Ives

In 'thinking up' music I usually have some kind of a brass band with wings on it in back of my mind. — Charles Ives

A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens ... if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly ... to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it? — Charles Ives

For the man of talent affects to call his transgressions of the laws of sense trivial and to count them nothing considerd with his devotion to his art. — Charles Ives

I also believe, along with Keats, that the Poetry of Earth is never dead, as long as Spring succeeds Winter, and man is there to perceive it ... And finally, I believe that because all these things are true, Ives' Unanswered Question has an answer. I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I know the answer is Yes. — Leonard Bernstein

Sweet music It beats love because there aren't any wounds: in the morning she turns on the radio, Brahms or Ives or Stravinsky or Mozart. She boils the eggs counting the seconds out loud: 56, 57, 58 ... she peels the eggs, brings them to me in bed. After breakfast it's the same chair and listen to the classical music. She's on her first glass of scotch and her third cigarette. I tell her I must go to the racetrack. She's been here about 2 nights and 2 days. "When will I see you again?" I ask. She suggests that might be up to me. I nod and Mozart plays. — Charles Bukowski

We're all inadequate," David answered. "Just think: the light from the outside world is mapped onto the retina, then further mapped onto the visual cortex, then broken apart and analyzed in other areas of the brain. At every step there's a loss of information. In the end, what we are aware of is not the outside world per se, but the image of the world projected onto our brains. Plato was anatomically right; we do see shadows on a wall. — Carolyn Ives Gilman

All melodious poets shall be hoarse as street ballads, when once the penetrating keynote of nature and spirit is sounded-the earth-beat, sea-beat, heart-beat, which make the tune to which the sun rolls, and the globule of blood and the sap of the trees. — Charles Ives

Necessarily, I'm always involved in casting, as any playwright is, because the whole process of putting on a play is a collaborative, organic effort on the part of a bunch of people trying to think alike. — David Ives

It is conceivable that what is unified form to the author or composer may of necessity be formless to his audience. — Charles Ives

My God! What has sound got to do with music? — Charles Ives

Charles Ives was writing radically innovative music, but nobody performed it, and nobody knew about it. — Terry Teachout

Casals says music fills him with the wonder of life and the 'incredible marvel' of being a human. Ives says it expands his mind and challenges him to be a true individual. Bernstein says it is enriching and ennobling. To me, that sounds like a good cause for making music and the arts an integral part of every child's education. Studying music and the arts elevates children's education, expands students' horizons, and teaches them to appreciate the wonder of life. — Richard Riley

The possibilities of percussion sounds, I believe, have never been fully realized — Charles Ives

Most of the forward movements of life in general ... have been the work of essentially religiously-minded people. — Charles Ives

Historians are not by and large inclined to supernatural explanations, but they are addicted to a near equivalent - 'inevitability'. — Eric Ives

If a composer has a nice wife and some nice children, how can he let the children starve on his dissonances? — Charles Ives

There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of the experience of life and thinking about life and living life. — Charles Ives

Awards are merely the badges of mediocrity. — Charles Ives

If there's one thing I feel very strongly about, it's that there shouldn't be a distinction between pianists who play Ligeti and those who play Chopin. It might seem that they involve different skill sets, but I don't think that's true: whether playing Ives or Bach or Beethoven, you must bring the same imagination, the same sensitivity, and an ability to deal with same kinds of musical problems. The method behind my madness, anyway, is to keep plugging away at this idea. — Jeremy Denk

Banion wondered which was worse - being sodomized by aliens, or having to sit through two hours of Charles Ives. — Charles Bukowski

One thing I am certain of is that, if I have done anything good in music, it was, first, because of my father, and second, because of my wife. — Charles Ives

As she stood there looking about, that radio sound resolved into the bluff baritone of Burl Ives, encouraging all the world to have a holly jolly Christmas, and never mind it was the third week of March. The voice was coming from the attached garage, a dingy building with a single roll-up door and four square windows looking into it, milky with filth. — Joe Hill

You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance. — Charles Ives

The most amazing thing to me about the sea is the tide. A harbour like St. Ives is totally transformed in a very short space of time by the arrival or departure of the sea. — John Dyer

With my plays, when the lights go down, at least the audience isn't thinking, 'Oh, God, two more hours of this.' — David Ives

I've known those pieces ever since I was about 16 or 17; I also at that time was taken to meet Charles Ives whom I got to know fairly well. He was the one who wrote a recommendation for me to get into college. — Elliott Carter

I was raised on the Hudson, in a house that had been the stable of the financier and Civil War general Brayton Ives. In midcentury, we had fire pits in the floor for heating, and rats everywhere, because they nested in the hay insulation. — Mark Helprin

Ultimately one has to pity these poor souls who know every secret about writing, directing, designing, producing, and acting but are stuck in those miserable day jobs writing reviews. Will somebody help them, please? — David Ives

Expression, to a great extent, is a matter of terms, and terms are anyone's. The meaning of 'God' may have a billion interpretations if there be that many souls in the world. — Charles Ives

Sara had grown up in a Balavati family, which meant she had been taught to reject all articles of faith except disrespect for authority, the lodestone of her life. — Carolyn Ives Gilman

To be a man requires that you accept everything life has to give you, beginning with your name. — Burl Ives

The fabric of existence weaves itself whole. — Charles Ives

Powerlessness is such a lure, such a poisonous lure. — Carolyn Ives Gilman

Trials are a part of life, but there is value in sometimes experiencing adversity which will test (and so strengthen) our faith and also build an understanding of God and ourselves. — Eric Ives

I missed New Jersey, primeval and green in the summer, a Currier and Ives painting in the winter. I missed hearing English sloppily spoken, — Anonymous

I got into a brawl one night in a saloon in Greenwich Village. Elia Kazan, a great director, saw me put out a couple of hecklers and figures there was some Big Daddy in me, just lyin' dormant. And out it came. People still do call me Big Daddy, but to me, inside, I'm no Big Daddy at all. — Burl Ives

It is more important to keep the horse going hard than to always play the exact notes. — Charles Ives

Nobody here wants Competition,' Ives LeSpark re-entering, shaking his head gravely. 'All wish but to name their Price, and maintain it, without the extra work and worry all these damn'd Up-starts require. — Thomas Pynchon

To die this way seems so random, so trivial. I have been robbed of meaning before being robbed of life. To die in darkness, alone -- for what purpose was I ever alive. It is as if I emerged from darkness into delusion, then sank back into darkness forever. — Carolyn Ives Gilman

The human animal is a beast that eventually has to die. If he's got money, he buys and he buys and he buys. The reason he buys everything he can is because of some crazy hope that one of the things he buys will be life everlasting. — Burl Ives

Unless, of course, one chose to join the increasing numbers who had decided they were so deep in despair that there was nothing worse to fear in life. These were men who had finally, and so early, so surprisingly early seen enough of something in their own ives and in the lives around them to convince them of the final futility of efforts of efforts to break the mean monthly cycle of debt and borrowing, borrowing and debt. — Ayi Kwei Armah

Captivating to men, Anne was also sharp, assertive, subtle, calculating, vindictive, a power dresser and a power player, perhaps a figure to be more admired than liked. — Eric Ives

The cool wind blew in my face and all at once I felt as if I had shed dullness from myself. Before me lay a long gray line with a black mark down the center. The birds were singing. It was spring. — Burl Ives

He [Alan Lomax] started right off trying to find people who could introduce folk songs to city people. He found a young actor named Burl Ives and said, "Burl, you know a lot of great country songs learned from your grandmother, don't you know people would love to hear them?" He put on radio programs. He persuaded CBS to dedicate "The School of the Air" for one year to American folk music. He'd get some old sailor to sing an old sea shanty with a cracked voice. Then he'd get me to sing it with my banjo. — Pete Seeger

The king greeted the document (the Collectanea) not so much as a drowning man greets a straw but as he might a rescue party from outer space. — Eric Ives

I love St. Ives Apricot Scrub, and you can just get that at CVS - it's so good, though; it's my favorite! Usually I only use that when I shower, because if I don't shower, I'm usually too tired to wash my face and just use Maybelline cleansing wipes. And then I use Chanel Hydra Beauty Lotion. That's so good, I love it. — Gigi Hadid

What kind of word is 'methodal'?" David asked. "A buzzword," Ashok answered, this time himself. "Methodal. Sounds like a drug." "That's what buzzwords are. Tranquilizers." "Thought suppressants, you mean. — Carolyn Ives Gilman

I admire pop songs that are perfect at three minutes. — David Ives

How I longed to see these things; how I longed to see the Liberty Bell and walk on the streets where Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin had walked. — Burl Ives

Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to a perfect truth. — Charles Ives

Music is one of the ways that God has of beating in on man. — Charles Ives

I have been approached now and again about sitcoms, but, with very few exceptions, one simply needs to move to L.A. for at least a year or two these days if one wants to develop a series - which is what writing a pilot means. I've also been approached about writing episodes for sitcoms, but in order to do that one actually has to watch sitcoms ... Life's too short for television, and I don't what it on my actual gravestone, HE STARED AT A BOX FOR 10,000 HOURS. — David Ives

The question of art songs always came up with Gastr del Sol. I think Jim O'Rourke had it right in being clear that there's a tradition of art song - Ives being the touchstone for the two of us - and what we do doesn't belong to it. It wasn't important to advance those kinds of distinctions, but clearly he thought it was fanciful for anyone to speak of what we were doing as being in that tradition. — David Grubbs

I went to my room and packed a change of clothes, got my banjo, and started walking down the road. Soon I found myself on the open highway headed east. — Burl Ives

I've always felt comfortable amongst the horrors. I married your uncle Gerard, after all. — Melika Dannese Lux

Nay," he said. "Awareness is unbounded, undifferentiated, and is present in all things. It doth not distinguish between 'I' and all else, because it dwelleth in everything. Consciousness is a manifestation of awareness that is bounded and particular. It is concentrated in a single place and time, and is limited to a single point of view. Consciousness continually reacheth out toward awareness, to join it, but it cannot without giving up what it is. The grain of salt cannot experience the brine without dissolving. — Carolyn Ives Gilman

All reviews should carry a Surgeon General's warning. The good ones turn your head, the bad ones break your heart. — David Ives

I've taught both screenwriting and playwriting, and playwriting is both much harder and much more rewarding. One can teach people how to tell a story in cinematic ways, but theater is a much more elusive craft. — David Ives

When you've set goals and dreams, you don't feel old. — Burl Ives

Lists are anti-democratic, discriminatory, elitist, and sometimes the print is too small. — David Ives

I knew I was really there, because I was the thing his arms encircled, the thing his love defined. — Carolyn Ives Gilman

Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration. — Charles Ives

I stopped and gazed on the little dull man who was being paid to be a teacher of teachers. I turned and walked to the door, slammed it closed with a bang, and broken glass crashed to the floor. There was uproar behind me in the class, which did not interest me at all. — Burl Ives

I'm perfectly natural the way I am. Why can't you humans ever understand that I might not want to be afflicted with gender? — Carolyn Ives Gilman

Stand up and take your dissonance like a man. — Charles Ives

A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannot be explained at noon. Yet it is part of the day's unity. — Charles Ives

I think everything should be in verse. 'The New York Times' should be in verse. — David Ives

Have a holly jolly Christmas! — Burl Ives

But maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language in the most extravagant sense. — Charles Ives

Please don't try to make things nice! All the wrong notes are right. Just copy as I have
I want it that way. — Charles Ives

Plays are always about intense relationships, whether they're intense love relationships or family relationships or existential relationships. — David Ives

Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ear lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently - possibly almost invariably - analytical and impersonal test will show that when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep. — Charles Ives

And here I am stronger and weaker for everything that happened and desperately grateful that this moment wasn't taken away. — Susanna Ives

Is not beauty in music too often confused with something which lets the ears lie back in an easy chair? — Charles Ives

Learning to write for the theatre is learning to be a human being, because the theatre by its very nature makes you deal with other human beings. — David Ives

I think my life has been a long, slow process of trying to move closer and closer to the spirit by moving closer and closer to the heart. The heart is what's important. — Burl Ives

I don't write music for sissy ears. — Charles Ives