Mozart's Quotes & Sayings

They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour's work as for a day's. They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart. They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian but not for the marriage supper of the lamb ... — Frederick Buechner

The great hope is that people who wouldn't normally make films will be making them. Suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father's camera and for once the so called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever - and it will really become an art form. — Francis Ford Coppola

Imagine if you could go watch Mozart today, even if it's the last, crappiest show he ever played. What a thrill that would be. — Roger Daltrey

Beauty doesn't have to be about anything. What's a vase about? What's a sunset or a flower about? What, for that matter, is Mozart's Twenty-third Piano Concerto about? — Douglas Adams

The psychological detective story in "Equus" made Peter Shaffer's name as a playwright. But it was his next play, "Amadeus," that cemented his reputation, largely because of the movie version. Another battle of wills, it was the story of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart seen through the eyes of lesser composer Antonio Salieri. — Bob Mondello

Mozart's music is the mysterious language of a distant spiritual kingdom, whose marvelous accents echo in our inner being and arouse a higher, intensive life. — E.T.A. Hoffmann

Contrary to popular definitions, true tolerance means 'putting up with error' - not 'accepting all views'. We don't tolerate what we enjoy or endorse - say, chocolate, or roses, or Mozart's music. By definition, we tolerate what we don't approve of or what we believe to be false. — Paul Copan

There's no equivalent to Mozart in writing. — Fran Lebowitz

I bring my classical training - some of it, but not all of it - and also my background and culture, to spirituals. And I try to leave room for that unpredictable factor, where the feeling of the song is allowed to come through. The same ethos can be applied to singing Mozart, or Schubert, or Bach. It's not just about what's on the page. — Kathleen Battle

Because it's a fucking disaster to be creative when you know you're not Mozart or Keats. Dammit, I got tired of scratching around in my past. There's nothing in me to justify the pretension of creativity. This came before anything, before you, before Raquel, this is a matter of my own emptiness, my awareness of my own limits, maybe my sterility. Does what I'm saying to you seem awful? Now you want to come along and sell me an illusion, which I don't believe in but which does make me believe that either you're a fool or you underestimate my intelligence. Why don't you just leave me alone, so I can fill the emptiness in my own way? Let me see things for myself, learn if something can still grow in my soul, an idea, a faith, because I swear to you, Laura, my soul is more desolate than this rock landscape you see here ... why? — Carlos Fuentes

--Your headache--


I am trying to imagine it
Your head is in your hands
The nurse is pouring pills onto a plate
November again
Too late

Your headache
It is a bird
Wounded, in leaves

Its sweet bird's nest is full of pain in a distant place

November
There are daisies
In the ruined garden, still blooming strangely

And in a manic yellow hat, the old lady

And the old man, dead in his bed

And their daughter, the saint:

Her dark, religious hair gets tangled in the branches
She is screaming, grabbing

While the nurses play Mozart in another room
While the bats fly over the roof
Snatch the black notes from the blackness
Laughing

You cry
I am going to die

I can see them through this window

Their little black capes

The touching ugliness of their little faces — Laura Kasischke

I listened to the pure crystalline notes of one of Mozart's concertos dropping at my feet like leaves from the trees. — Virgil Thomson

Eva knows I'm terra incognita and explores me unhurriedly, like you did. Because she's lean as a boy. Because her scent is almonds, meadow grass. Because if I smile at her ambition to be an Egyptologist, she kicks my shin under the table. Because she makes me think about something other than myself. Because even when serious she shines. Because she prefers travelogues to Sir Walter Scott, prefers Billy Mayerl to Mozart, and couldn't tell a C major from a sergeant major. Because I, only I, see her smile a fraction before it reaches her face. Because Emperor Robert is not a good man - his best part is commandeered by his unperformed music - but she gives me that rarest smile, anyway. Because we listened to nightjars. Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. Because a man like me has no business with this substance "beauty," yet here she is, in these soundproof chambers of my heart. — David Mitchell

cademics and intellectuals are culture vultures. In a gathering of today's elite, it is perfectly acceptable to laugh that you barely passed Physics for Poets and Rocks for Jocks and have remained ignorant of science ever since, despite the obvious importance of scientific literacy to informed choices about personal health and public policy. But saying that you have never heard of James Joyce or that you tried listening to Mozart once but prefer Andrew Lloyd Webber is as shocking as blowing your nose on your sleeve or announcing that you employ children in your sweatshop, despite the obvious unimportance of your tastes in leisure-time activity to just about anything. — Steven Pinker

Reverend Easter waved her hand dismissively. "It doesn't matter to God what we call ourselves, or even what we call Him. We're the only ones who care about that. But as an Episcopalian and not an evangelical," she said, with a knowing look at Hannah, "I'll answer your question with another question, or rather, with a bunch of them, which is how we tend to do things. How else do you explain the miracle of your beating heart, the compassion of strangers, the existence of Mozart and Rilke and Michelangelo? How do you account for redwoods and hummingbirds, for orchids and nebulas? How can such beauty possibly exist without God? And how can we see it and know it's beautiful and be moved by it, without God?" Hannah — Hillary Jordan

Tune, tune," said Porch briskly. He turned to Orson. "And is there a word for today?" Orson was the word person, spilling words out as if they were notes on a staff. "Rebarbative," said Orson promptly. "Causing annoyance or irritation. Mozart's rebarbative music causes me to want to throw up." Porch sighed. Orson preferred Schubert. — Patricia MacLachlan

Louis Armstrong on Mondays, Frank Sinatra on Wednesdays, Glenn Miller on Fridays, and Mozart on Sundays. Unless it was raining. If it's raining, it's always Billie Holiday. — Clare Vanderpool

A. R. Rahman is truly India's Mozart. His music is celebrated worldwide. — Kailash Kher

Although the only way that I'm well known at Illinois State is that I am the "grammar Nazi." And so any student whose deployment of a semi-colon is not absolutely Mozart-esque knows that they're going to get a C in my class, and so my classes tend to have like four students in them. It's really a lot of fun. — David Foster Wallace

Mori made an unwilling sound. 'I don't like Western art.'

'No look at this.' He lifted it from its package. It wasn't heavy. 'It's clever, it looks like busy Mozart.'

'What?'

'I . . .' Thaniel sighed. 'I see sound. Mozart looks like this. You know. Fast strings.'

'See? In front of you?'

'Yes. I'm not mad.'

'I didn't think so. All sounds?'

'Yes. — Natasha Pulley

Did you know that Mozart had no arms and no legs? I've seen statues of him on people's pianos. — Victor Borge

Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can't explain - I don't need to. I know that if there's a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I'm here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer. — Maurice Sendak

No one can explain how the notes of a Mozart melody, or the folds of a piece of Titian's drapery, produce their essential effects. If you do not feel it, no one can by reasoning make you feel it. — John Ruskin

The fact that most people do not understand and respect the very best things, such as Mozart's concertos, is what permits men like us to become famous. — Johannes Brahms

There's no question about it. The arts are an extremely high-risk situation. People are willing to take these extraordinary chances to become writers, musicians or painters, and because of them we have a culture. If this ever stops, our culture will die, because most of our culture, in fact, has been created by people that got paid nothing for it-- People like Edgar Allan Poe, Vincent van Gogh or Mozart. So, yes, it's a very foolish thing to do, notoriously foolish, but it seems human to attempt it anyway. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Mozart's music is particularly difficult to perform. His admirable clarity exacts absolute cleanness: the slightest mistake in it stands out like black on white. It is music in which all the notes must be heard. — Gabriel Faure

To understand Mozart's contradictory qualities would indeed be to understand genius. — Lukas Foss

If you think you're going to have an eternity in which you can talk to Mozart and Chopin and Schopenhauer on a cloud and learn stuff and you know really get to grips with knowledge and understanding and so you won't bother now, I think it's a terrible, a terrible mistake. — Stephen Fry

When you first hear Mozart's music, your first impression is that it's very alive, but if you peel away the layers, you can hear sorrow and sadness behind it, and that's what I try to be: multi-layered. — Park Chan-wook

People marvel at the genius of Mozart because he supposedly wrote "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" at the age of three and composed his first symphony at the age of twelve. And yes, of course he was a genius, but another way to look at it is that he just discovered early what it was God made him to do. That's all. For some reason, God gave him a little extra, or a little something different, and Mozart found out what that was and then got a head start on using it. Of course he was brilliant, but that's not the point. The point is he knew, and then he got to work. — Charles Martin

Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe. — Douglas Adams

The best of Mozart's works cannot be even slightly rewritten without diminishment. — Peter Shaffer

Mozart in his music was probably the most reasonable of the world's great composers. It is the happy balance between flight and control, between sensibility and self-discipline, simplicity and sophistication of style that is his particular province ... Mozart tapped once again the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breath-taking rightness that has never since been duplicated. — Aaron Copland

Mozart's music gives us permission to live. — John Updike

Jacques wants a pancake shaped like Mozart's Symphony No. 40! In G minor! — Michelle Cuevas

My first singing role was as Susanna in a school production in a shortened form of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. I loved to sing and I was given lots of encouragement by a wonderful music teacher Mrs Ann Hill and by my parents who suggested I go to drama school. — Elaine Paige

Essentially, all expressions of human nature ever produced, from a caveman's paintings to Mozart's symphonies and Einstein's view of the universe, emerge from the same source: the relentless dynamic toil of large populations of interconnected neurons. — Miguel Nicolelis

Q: What genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?

A: I love reading anything about gigantic animate blobs of molten iron who secretly long to be concert pianists. It's not a particularly well-populated genre, but in particular I'd mention, "Grog, Who Loved Chopin," as well as the somewhat derivative "Clom, Big Fan of Mozart. — George Saunders

The Maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum when you're waiting for the miracle to come. — Leonard Cohen

The author's conviction on this day of New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement. — Ezra Pound

Mozart is everyone's tea, pleasing to highbrows, middlebrows and lowbrows alike, though they probably all get different kinds of pleasure from him. — Rose Macaulay

Mozart's music always sounds unburdened, effortless, and light. This is why it unburdens, releases, and liberates us. — Karl Barth

You need some reason why Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn in the 18th century all flocked to Vienna. What was it about Vienna? They must have known on some level that that is where they would flourish. It's what biologists call "selective migration." — Eric Weiner

It's an extraordinary thing about Mozart is that you never tire of him ... he never bores me, and he doesn't ... not only bore me, that's too strong a word. — Peter Shaffer

Let's dispel the idiotic notion that the plays were not written by Shakespeare. Of course they were written by Shakespeare. How can we look at someone with a body of work like Mozart and say that a human being is not capable of a body of work like Shakespeare's with language? We can't. He wrote the plays. — Paul Barnes

Simplicity is always a virtue. One kid on a riverbank working out a Stephen Foster tune on his new harmonica heard from the correct esthetic distance projects more magic and power than the entire Vienna Philharmonic and Chorus laboring (once again) through the Mozart Requiem or Bach's B Minor Mass. — Edward Abbey

I think the music of Mozart is like a universe of human feelings, sentiments and fragility, and ... that's why it's so 'actual' in a way, so modern. — Cecilia Bartoli

Lombardi: There's a whole series of beautiful Mozart and Wagner records, in still very pristine condition. But, never a Bible. Until now. May I ask what condition it's in?
Eli: It's beat up. But it will do the job. — Book Of Eli Movie

The Mozart sonata Dad picked out begins to play. When we hear the first note, we open the sacks and the ladybugs escape through the opening, taking flight. It's as if someone has dumped rubies from heaven. Soon they will land on the plants in search of bollworm eggs. But right now they are magic-red ribbons flying over our heads, weaving against the pink sky, dancing up there with Mozart. — Kimberly Willis Holt

Mozart's music is like an X-ray of your soul - it shows what is there, and what isn't. — Isaac Stern

Since Mozart's day composers have learned the art of making music throatily and palpitatingly sexual. — Aldous Huxley

In 1829 Rossini was at an age which has often proven critical in the lives of musicians, painters and writers. Lapses into silence far more complete than Rossini's, creative failures, suicides, and unanticipated deaths have been common in the middle to late 30s. As Charles Rosen has noted, 'It is the age when the most fluent composer begins to lose the ease of inspiration he once possessed, when even Mozart had to make sketches and to revise'. — Richard Osborne

I hate when people act like music is nothing but wild creativity," Logan said. "That's bullshit. It's also about counting and measuring and calibrating. If you do it right." He passed his hand over my MP3 player sitting on the bed between us. It was playing Mozart to help my concentration. "And if you do it really right, no one can tell how hard it is for you. You can let them believe it's magic, because that means you must be magic. You're worth worshipping. — Jeri Smith-Ready

If Mozart had power tools, there's no telling how great his music might have been. — Dave Barry

The only thing that interests me in music is to be able to reach into the, let's call it, 'collective unconscious' of what is noblest in the human spirit, the way you find in the music of Mozart and Beethoven and Verdi that wonderful quality that not a note can be changed. — Gian Carlo Menotti

My proposition is that music is at the heart of what 'The Magic Flute' means: that it's Mozart's music, not the words, we should be attending to. Music expresses what can't be expressed otherwise. — Simon McBurney

People forget that Mozart wrote for commissions. There's a thing in psychology where they think if it's popular, it can't be serious. — Anthony Hopkins

Someone like Mozart moves from Salzburg to Vienna, where all of the sudden he finds this musical city that is not only asking for music, it's demanding music of him. — Eric Weiner

I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I look grey. I actually do. Mirrors should be banned, the same way Uncle Noelie banned the News. Both are enemies of hope. Uncle Noelie said he couldn't take listening to the wall-to-wall Doom experts who were the Boom experts before, most of them like a dark neighbour secretly delighted to be part of an important funeral, and so, because the time called for extreme tactics and because your heart has to be sustained by something, he switched over to Lyric FM for Marty in the Morning and shook hands with Mozart. But you can't switch off the mirror, it's right there over the bathroom sink, it's hard to avoid, and in it I'm grey. — Niall Williams

Mozart's music is an invitation to the listener to venture just a little out of the sense of his own subjectivity. — Karl Barth

It's WA today, Minna," called Orson from across the room, Orson's name for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Orson played second violin with a sloppy serenity, rolling his eyes and sticking out his tongue, his bowing long and sweeping and beautiful even when out of tune. "If you must make a mistake," he had quoted, "make it a big one." Was it Heifetz who had said it? Perlman? Zukerman maybe? — Patricia MacLachlan

Cope's bot can string together notes that weave in and out with the power of Beethoven or the finesse of Mozart. That a machine can produce things of such beauty is threatening to many in the music community. "If you've spent a good portion of your life being in love with these dead composers and along comes some twerp who claims to have this piece of software that can move you in the same way, suddenly you're asking yourself, 'What's happened here?'" Cope says. "I'm messing with some very powerful relationships. — Christopher Steiner

Unlike modern pills, these hard antimony pills didn't dissolve in the intestines, and the pills were considered so valuable that people rooted through fecal matter to retrieve and reuse them. Some lucky families even passed down laxatives from father to son. Perhaps for this reason, antimony found heavy work as a medicine, although it's actually toxic. Mozart probably died from taking too much to combat a severe fever. — Sam Kean

We're dealing with music that is being played by traditional instruments in a specifically built building called a concert hall.
But classical is not - the reference is wrong, because classical on one hand refers to one period in musical history, which is Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven, which is a fine period in musical history, but it was a while ago.On the other hand, it sort of alludes to some kind of "class," which A, is not true; B, is kind of detrimental to the whole idea. Because the point is that this music is available and it's actually relatively reasonably priced. — Esa-Pekka Salonen

No one can get reall drunk on a novle or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on Beethoven's night, Bartok's Sonata for two Pianos and percussion or the Beatles' White Album? He loved mozart as much as rock.
He considered music a liberating force, it liberated him from lonliness, introversion, the dust of the library; it opened the door of hi body and allowed his soul to step out into the world to make friends, He loved to dance an regretted that Sabina did not share his passion
pg 92-93 — Milan Kundera

The Ph.D is one of the chosen who know that some things can never be fathomed, no matter how hard you try. What good are explanations? There is no possibility of explaining how such a work [Mozart's Requiem, in the instance] could ever have come into being. (The same holds true for certain poems, which should not be analyzed either.) — Elfriede Jelinek

His left foot is fantastic. It's like Mozart. God gave Freddy the gift to play soccer. If he is prepared mentally and physically, nobody will stop him.
(on Freddy Adu) — Pele

While the long history of religious oppression and hypocrisy is profoundly sobering, the earnest seeker must look beyond the behavior of flawed humans in order to find the truth. Would you condemn an oak tree because its timbers had been used to build battering rams? Would you blame the air for allowing lies to be transmitted through it? Would you judge Mozart's The Magic Flute on the basis of a poorly rehearsed performance by fifth-graders? If you had never seen a real sunset over the Pacific, would you allow a tourist brochure as a substitute? Would you evaluate the power of romantic love solely in the light of an abusive marriage next door? No. A real evaluation of the truth of faith depends upon looking at the clean, pure water, not at the rusty containers. — Francis S. Collins

You are right john cohen - quazimodo was right - mozart was right ... . I cannot say the word eye any more ... . when I speak this word eye, it is as if I am speaking of somebody's eye that I faintly remember ... . there is no eye - there is only a series of mouths - long live the mouths - your rooftop - if you don't already know - has been demolished ... . eye is plasma & you are right about that too - you are lucky - you don't have to think about such things as eye & rooftops & quazimodo. — Bob Dylan

I understood it all. I understood Pablo. I understood Mozart, and somewhere behind me I heard his ghastly laughter. I knew that all the hundred thousand pieces of life's game were in my pocket. A glimpse of its meaning had stirred my reason and I was determined to begin the game afresh. I would sample its tortures once more and shudder again at its senselessness. I would traverse not once more, but often, the hell of my inner being. — Hermann Hesse

Mozart's first work regarded today as a masterpiece, with its status confirmed by the number of recordings available, is his Piano Concerto No. 9, composed when he was twenty-one. That's certainly an early age, but we must remember that by then Wolfgang had been through eighteen years of extremely hard, expert training. — Geoff Colvin

Mozart's mental grip never loosens; he never abandons himself to any one sense; even at his most ecstatic moments his mind is vigorous, alert, and on the wing. He dives unerringly on to his finest ideas like a bird of prey, and once an idea is seized he soars off again with an undiminished power. — Walter J. Turner

Mozart's music is constantly escaping from its frame, because it cannot be contained in it. — Leonard Bernstein

The enlightened rational man is not unlike the title character in Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni": a likeable rake, intelligent and enterprising, free to do as he pleases, outmaneuvering his honorable, tradition-bound adversaries at every step. One cannot begrudge him his liberty and pursuit of happiness, but looming large above him is his fatal flaw: his mind's maturity does not match his freedom. His pursuits are frivolous, tawdry and destructive. And this, we maintain, is the historical moment of our techno-scientific world: like some allegorical alien race in a science fiction story, we have placed broad freedoms and enormous power in the hands of a flawed creature: ourselves. Empirical reason has brought us here, and by its light we will have to find a way forward. — Danko Antolovic

Because of Mozart, it's all over after the age of seven. — Wendy Wasserstein

What's even worse than a flute? - Two flutes! — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

My music wasn't written by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach or Schubert. It's written by God and me. They go "a one and a two and up." We start on the downbeat. Bam! And that's where we got them. — James Brown

It's your choice, what you do with the moment. If you're stuck in a traffic jam, you can get angry and honk your horn, or listen to Mozart. But when you have a very specific expectation of how things should be, then, of course, you end up hurting yourself. — Deepak Chopra

The age of clear answers was over. So was the age of characters and plots. Despite her journal sketches, she no longer really believed in characters. They were quiant devices that belonged to the nineteenth century. The very concept of character was founded on errors that modern psychology had exposed. Plots too were like rusted machinery whose wheels would no longer turn. A modern novelist could no more write characters and plots than a modern composer could a Mozart symphony. It was thought, perception, sensations that interested her, the conscious mind as a river through time, and how to represent its onward roll, as well as the tributaries that would swell it, and the obstacles that would divert it. If only she could reproduce the clear light of a summer's morning, the sensations of a child standing at a window, the curve and dip of a swallow's flight over a pool of water. The novel of the future would be unlike anything in the past. — Ian McEwan

...as a pianist, I can't say I was always a big fan of contemporary music. The challenge of late Beethoven, or Mozart, or Schubert seemed to me to be somehow greater or more worthwhile than that of learning difficult, ill-placed notes. To me, the kind of transcendence in the older pieces really was more interesting. That's not to say I didn't love the contemporary pieces I did play. I became very attached to the ones I learned, and I played them with pleasure and absolute commitment. It may be terrible to say this, but playing some of that music is like having a handicapped child. You love it all the more for the problems that it gives you. — Leon Fleisher

Most of all I admire Mozart's capacity to be both deep and rational, a combination often said to be impossible. — Allan Bloom

We are going to pick up our instruments and play Mozart,"
Honoria announced. "And we are going to do it with smiles on our
faces."
"I have no idea what any of you are talking about," Daisy said.
"I will play," Sarah said, "but I make no promises about a
smile." She looked at the piano and blinked. "And I am not picking
up my instrument."
Iris actually giggled. Then her eyes lit up. "I could help you."
"Pick it up?"
Iris's grin grew positively devilish. "The window is not far ... "
"I knew I loved you," Sarah said with a wide smile. — Julia Quinn

You are not quite ready yet, though. For the next six months, practice until your arms ache and your lips bleed. The suffering will be good for you. A slight smile crossed the conductor's face. If you haven't already found a woman who will break your heart, find one. What we played tonight, especially the Mozart, requires suffering. — Ron Rash

The most perfect melodic shapes are found in Mozart; he has the lightness of touch which is the true objective ... Listen to the remarkable expansion of a Mozart melody, to Cherubino's 'Voi che sapete', for instance. You think it is coming to an end, but it goes farther, even farther. — Richard Strauss

In her mind she could remember about six different tunes from the pieces of his [Mozart's] she had heard. A few of them were kind of quick and tinkling, and another was like that smell in springtime after a rain. But they all made her somehow sad and excited at the same time.
She hummed one of the tunes, and after a while in the hot, empty house by herself she felt the tears come in her eyes. — Carson McCullers

Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's - the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering - a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages. — Leonard Bernstein

When Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can't explain ... I don't need to. I know that if there's a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. — Maurice Sendak

Mozart's pet starling once revised a phrase he wrote. The bird sang it after he played it on the piano, but changed all the sharps to flats. Mozart described it happening in the margin of the score. 'That was beautiful!' he wrote. When the bird died, he sang at its funeral, and read a poem to it. — Kim Stanley Robinson

GENERAL BOOKS ABOUT LANGUAGE Highly readable, witty, and provocative is Roger Brown's Words and Things. Also readable, magnificent, though sometimes too dogmatic, is Eric H. Lenneberg's Biological Foundations of Language. The deepest and most beautiful explorations of all are to be found in L. S. Vygotsky's Thought and Language, originally published in Russian, posthumously, in 1934, and later translated by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vahar. Vygotsky has been described - not unjustly - as "the Mozart of psychology." A personal favorite of mine is Joseph Church's Language and the Discovery of Reality: A Developmental Psychology of Cognition, a book one goes back to again and again. — Oliver Sacks

Andres Segovia literally created the genre of classical guitar, which hadn't existed before around 1910. There was flamenco, which he borrowed from, but he actually arranged the works of Mozart and other classical composers for guitar, something that had never been done before ... Segovias' style is not slick or contrived, but it's still very clean and his timing is impeccable ... it's got a feeling of casual elegance, as if he's sitting around the house in Spain with a jug of wine, just playing from the heart. — Roger McGuinn

My reaction to Radiohead isn't as simple as jealousy. Jealousy just burns; Radiohead infuriate me. But if it were only that, I wouldn't go back and listen to those records again and again. Listening to Radiohead makes me fell like I'm a Salieri to their Mozart. Yorke's lyrics make me want to give up. I could never in my wildest dreams find something as beautiful as they find for a single song - let alone album after album. — Dave Matthews

Mozart's music is free of all exaggeration, of all sharp breaks and contradictions. The sun shines but does not blind, does not burn or consume. Heaven arches over the earth, but it does not weigh it down, it does not crush or devour it. — Karl Barth

It's like telling Mozart that there are too many notes in an opera. Which one do you want us to take out? — Gordon Bethune

I'm trying to learn classical piano, Mozart and Beethoven and stuff. I took lessons when I was younger and now I sort of sight read the music and play it by ear. It's fun. It takes up a lot of time. I practice a couple of hours a day, but I find it soothing. — Evan Peters

I listen to tons of hard rock and metal, like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, etc., but I also listen to Beethoven and Mozart, to Discharge and the Bad Brains, and to Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. So I think there's merit to both the melodic punk and to the hardcore stuff too. — Dave Smalley

Mozart," Julie says in a bitter chuckle, staring at the speaker. "It's supposed to be the pinnacle of art, right? This transcendent human achievement? And we use it for background noise in bathrooms. We literally shit on it. — Isaac Marion

If P=NP, then the world would be a profoundly different place than we usually assume it to be. There would be no special value in "creative leaps," no fundamental gap between solving a problem and recognizing the solution once it's found. Everyone who could appreciate a symphony would be Mozart; everyone who could follow a step-by-step argument would be Gauss; everyone who could recognize a good investment strategy would be Warren Buffett. — Scott Aaronson

Mozart would play a counterpart with his left hand while using his right to mock it. It was blue, dark, shadowy - and it made me feel something. That's when I realized music was inside me. — Alicia Keys

The extraordinary thing about Irving Berlin is that he's like the American Mozart! It seems as if his songs were always there. How do you put together songs like 'Always' or 'Cheek To Cheek'? Songs of his are, frankly, perfect. — Maury Yeston