Opera Now Quotes & Sayings

Her weight settled on her back foot as she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, now legitimately baffled.

"How delusional are you, aliens in your head notwithstanding? — G.S. Jennsen

Now Leroux, what think you
Of this twist to the story? — E.A. Bucchianeri

I like the plain, old-fashioned churches, built for use, not show, where people met for hearty praying and preaching, and where everybody made their own music instead of listening to opera singers, as we do now. I don't care if the old churches were bare and cold, and the seats hard, there was real piety in them, and the sincerity of it was felt in the lives of the people. I don't want a religion that I put away with my Sunday clothes, and don't take out till the day comes round again; I want something to see and feel and live by day-by-day, — Louisa May Alcott

He wasn't going to be able to deactivate the field, which meant there was only one choice.

He'd realized early on that his arcane, profoundly alien passenger came with a cost, possibly one too high to pay and get out the other side free and clear. He'd pay it nonetheless and without complaint if the diati would only come through for him now.

Caleb closed his eyes. — G.S. Jennsen

I love opera. Si. But I am old. No passion in my life, you know? I work, I walk slowly now through my years ... but opera! I see, I hear that passion, Eva. Is like the passion of youth. And I live again. I feel something. — J.J. Brown

She did it, though she hated opera. She hated everything about it. The overblown sense of drama. The violence and lewdness. No one had ever died of heartbreak in Reverie. Betrayal never led to murder. Those things didn't happen anymore. They had the Realms now. They could experience anything without taking risks. Now, life was Better than Real. — Veronica Rossi

Opera once was an important social instrument - especially in Italy. With Rossini and Verdi, people were listening to opera together and having the same catharsis with the same story, the same moral dilemmas. They were holding hands in the darkness. That has gone. Now perhaps they are holding hands watching television. — Luciano Berio

The show is escapism. If you look back to when I was in college, all the girls in the sorority houses were gathered around watching soap operas. That was the escapism, the show that was giving you something you couldn't have. Now, you go into any sorority house, there are 50 to 100 girls piled in watching The Bachelor. We are the modern-day soap opera. — Chris Harrison

I wasn't the best in my class at the Royal Academy. There was a really good soprano and baritone who were technically better and are doing really well in opera now. But I was definitely the best mezzo-soprano in my class, because I was the only one of those! — Katherine Jenkins

He had always disliked the people who encored a favorite air in an opera - "That just spoils it" had been his comment. But this now appeared to him as a principle of far wider application and deeper moment. This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backward . . . was it possibly the root of all evil? No: of course the love of money was called that. But money itself - perhaps one valued it chiefly as a defense against chance, a security for being able to have things over again, a means of arresting the unrolling of the film. He — C.S. Lewis

St. Clair gets a crush on Anna. He's torn between her and Ellie, and he spends so much time running between them that he hardly has time left for Josh. And the more time that Josh spends alone, the more he realizes how alone he actually is. All of his friends will be gone the next year. Josh grows increasingly antagonistic toward school, which makes Rashmi increasingly antagonistic toward him, which makes him increasingly antagonistic toward her. And she's upset because Elie dropped her as a friend, and Meredith is upset because now St. Clair likes two girls who aren't her, and Anna is upset because St. Clair is leading her on, and then St. Clair's mom gets cancer.
It's a freaking soap opera. — Stephanie Perkins

The performances of my works in the last 10 years are probably equal to all the previous years put together. There are so many venues now and there is a completely new public for opera that's grown up outside of the traditional core opera public. — Carlisle Floyd

She lay awake for many hours into the night, among her trunks and trinkets. She glanced over at the neat stacks of materials and toys and opera plumes and said, aloud, "Does it really belong to me?"
Or was it the elaborate trick of an old lady convincing herself that she had a past? After all, once a time was over, it was done. You were always in the present. She may have been a girl once, but was not now. Her childhood was gone and nothing could fetch it back. — Ray Bradbury

And now out onto Airport Road and into the city's horn-honk opera. — Katherine Boo

Look!You want to see? See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like? Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a good-looking fellow, eh? ... When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me.She loves me forever! I am a kind of Don Juan, you know! ... Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant!
-Erik in The Phantom of the Opera — Gaston Leroux

I read a story about some old opera singer once, and when a guy asked her to marry him, she took him backstage after she had sung a real triumph, with all the people calling for her, asked, 'Do you think you could give me that?' That story hit me right, man. I know no guy ever made me feel as good as an audience. I'm really far into this now, really committed. Like, I don't think I'd go off the road for long now, for life with a guy no matter how good. Yeah, it's the truth. Scary thing to say though, isn't it? — Janis Joplin

Your iPod is whispering in your ear. It was keeping you company, but now it's like a good friend turned bad [ ... ] It is turning your life into a dark, looping rock opera. — Meg Jay

Opera is credible drama now, and it costs less than going to a football match. What have you got to lose? — Lesley Garrett

Actually I am pretty pregnant with the news Sid brought me, but glad we have not spread it. The girls look very happy. With their heads bound up in babushkas they might be out of the peasant chorus of a Russian opera. Any minute now we will sing and dance to the balalaika. Charity is tall and striking; Sally smaller, darker, quieter. One dazzles, the other warms. In a couple of hours I will need sympathy, but for now I like being washed by the wind. — Wallace Stegner

Four billion years ago the planet Earth was molten rock; now it sings opera! — Brian Swimme

In opera tradition, when opera die-hard fans, there is a replacement of singer or singer wasn't at his or hers vocal best, doing something, they boo. Especially now that they pay hundreds of dollars for the ticket. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Ayn Rand called her novella Anthem a "hymn to man's ego." My approach to Anthem the play was to provide the story a further dimension through music and sound. The work is now larger than a hymn. It's really "spoken opera." — Jeff Britting

I have attended operas, whenever I could not help it, for fourteen years now; I am sure I know of no agony comparable to the listening to an unfamiliar opera. — Mark Twain

Nisi flashed his charismatic, mysterious smile. "Now, with this in mind, are you ready to take the next step?"

Despite Caleb's attempts at caution - at circumspection and even suspicion - the man's words stirred his blood. They teased the possibilities of the power within his reach, real power extending far beyond parlor tricks and personal protection to a place where the course of life itself could be changed.

"I am. — G.S. Jennsen

Off this fucking predictable soap opera, this will happen now, then that, then that and you say that you are christian and you start watching series of Turkey people which believe in a very different god so far god of hell - Allah... — Deyth Banger

Because comedy is cheap to put on: if you've got a play or an opera, there's a whole load of people and a set, but comedy is just one man or woman. And because TV has learned to love comics - there's so many more around now than when I started out. — Arthur Smith

Now the big question is if you are going to go to all the trouble of setting an opera and making all that music and so on, there's got to be some aspect that you can do in an opera that really makes it worth while. — William Bolcom

Our mistake, you see, was to write interminable large operas, which had to fill an entire evening. And now along comes someone with a one or two-act opera without all that pompous nonsense - that was a happy reform. — Giuseppe Verdi

Even if the purely personal hardships of "labour" in the 'forties were not exaggerated, they have simply disappeared now...instead of starvation-wages for the individual "hand", elaborate calculations are made - not on comic opera stages, but in solemn Committees and even Commissions - how much it will take to keep him, his wife, and their two or three children, housed, fed, clothed, and amused - education and medical attendance being already provided for at the expense of the upper and middle classes...have all these enormous changes in their favour benefited the morale of the working classes?...Are they not lazier, greedier, more full of hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness towards other classes, readier to put on those classes any burden of which they may relieve themselves? — George Saintsbury

When I was younger, I felt it essential to see every movie ever made. Now I feel as though I've got to read every book, see every art show, watch every play and opera and concert and so on. It does not end, and of course there is truth in the old cliche that the more one knows, the more one realizes one knows nothing at all. — James Gray

Know that it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you! ... Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who therefore can never leave me again! ... Oh, mad Christine, who wanted to see me! — Gaston Leroux

Also she went in for culture, which gave her a certain moral authority. It wouldn't now; but people believed, then, that culture could make you better - a better person. They believed it could uplift you, or the women believed it. They hadn't yet seen Hitler at the opera house. — Margaret Atwood

We'll go along with it for now. Valkyrie, keep close watch and be ready to swoop to the rescue."

'Hopefully swooping will not be required, nor rescue. But I am ready to do both.'

He squeezed her hand. "Alex?"

"I'm ready, too. — G.S. Jennsen

Now, all of a sudden, every college and every university has an opera theater. Every little city has its little group. — Gian Carlo Menotti

I have the absolute utmost respect for soap opera actors now. They work harder than any actor I know in any other medium. And they don't get very much approbation for it. — Joan Collins

Where were we a year ago, Bink?" "In Vienna." "In Vienna, swiving opera singers." They shared a moment of silent recollection. "And now you're an earl. A man of responsibility. You'll want a wife. — Alina K. Field

The woman's gaze sent chills racing down his spine. The diabolical, aberrantly predatory arch of her lips curdled his blood. Seriously, his blood must be curdling back at the lab right now.

"Nice illusion. I'm definitely feeling the evil vibe here."

She stood and rounded the desk with perfect grace. "There is no illusion. Explain yourself quickly now, before I grow bored by your presence and dispense with it. — G.S. Jennsen

Apartment windows are cracked open to the cold to balance overzealous radiators, and there's comfort in the sounds drifting out. Each window Amelia passes hints at the warmth inside: people talking, people laughing, kitchen sounds, the steady pulse of music. Now salsa, now reggae. Now opera, now rock. voices in English, in Spanish in Korean, in junkie gibberish. And she's a part of it, at least as long as the sounds of all those lives wash over her. — Cari Luna

Opera has the power to warn you that you have wasted your life. You haven't acted on your desires. You've suffered a stunted, vicarious existence. You've silenced your passions. The volume, height, depth, lushness, and excess of operatic utterance reveal, by contrast, how small your gestures have been until now, how impoverished your physicality; you have only used a fraction of your bodily endowment, and your throat is closed. — Terry Tempest Williams

Nadya Zelenin and her mother had returned from a performance of Eugene Onegin at the theatre. Going into her room, the girl swiftly threw off her dress and let her hair down. Then she quickly sat at the table in her petticoat and white bodice to write a letter like Tatyana's.
'I love you,' she wrote, 'but you don't love me, you don't love me!'
Having written this, she laughed.
She was only sixteen and had never loved anyone yet. She knew that Gorny (an army officer) and Gruzdyov (a student) were both in love with her, but now, after the opera, she wanted to doubt their love. To be unloved and miserable: what an attractive idea! There was something beautiful, touching and romantic about A loving B when B wasn't interested in A. Onegin was attractive in not loving at all, while Tatyana was enchanting because she loved greatly. Had they loved equally and been happy they might have seemed boring.
("After The Theatre") — Anton Chekhov

For so long, I hadn't really heard Margo - I'd seen her screaming and thought her laughing - that now I figured it was my job. To try, even at this great remove, to hear the opera of her. — John Green

All these years that I had been waiting for him to return, I had been too anxious and somewhat insecure to develop any plan of action. I had scrupulously avoided giving any thought to it until the time to tackle things head-on arrived, so now I was suffering the consequences of my own indecisiveness. But in all seriousness, what steady plan could there be in matters of the heart? — Jeno Marz

Until the Eighties, Oslo was a rather boring town, but it's changed a lot, and is now much more cosmopolitan. If I go downtown, I visit the harbour to see the tall ships and the ferries, and to admire the modern architecture such as the Opera House or the new Astrup Fearnley Museum on the water's edge. — Jo Nesbo

He did not have time to wallow, to give a moment's thought to what may have happened to her or whether she was alive.

Turn into the punch, grab hold of the gun, leap into the arena. Attack.

He had to move. Now. — G.S. Jennsen

Remember what they did to Broadleaf, and remember what they did to us. Now it's time for us to kill 'em back. — Henry V. O'Neil

I went out to testify in front of the Ways and Means Committee out in Congress on open free trade to China. Now, this would affect literally every Minnesotan in some way or another, if not all Americans in some way or another ... The local media sent no one out to cover my testimony ... Well, then a couple weeks later, I go out to do The Young and the Restless, the TV soap opera, and everybody sends crews. We had to move them into a room in three different sections or three shifts of them because there was so much media covering that. — Jesse Ventura

If they liked a tune, they wanted to hear it again - now! The vibe was more like CBGB than your typical contemporary opera house. — David Byrne

A faith-healer may or may not start out with fraud in mind. But to his amazement, his patients actually seem to be improving. Their emotions are genuine, their gratitude heart-felt. When the healer is criticized, such people rush to his defence. Several elderly attendees of the channelling at the Sydney Opera House were incensed after the Sixty Minutes expose: 'Never mind what they say,' they told Alvarez, 'we believe in you'.
These successes may be enough to convince many charlatans, no matter how cynical they were at the beginning, that they actually have mystical powers. Maybe they're not successful every time. The powers come and go, they tell themselves. They have to cover the down time. If they must cheat a little now and then, it serves a higher purpose, they tell themselves. Their spiel is consumer-tested. It works. — Carl Sagan

And Barcelona. You should see Barcelona." "How is it?" "It is all still comic opera. First it was the paradise of the crackpots and the romantic revolutionists. Now it is the paradise of the fake soldier. The soldiers who like to wear uniforms, who like to strut and swagger and wear red-and-black scarves. Who like everything about war except to fight. Valencia makes you sick and Barcelona makes you laugh. — Ernest Hemingway,

The system is only as good as its leaders. When they fail - when the system fails - you better damn well hope I'm there to pick up the slack."

The man's glower lost some of its fervor. "No one appointed you humanity's protector."

"No one had to - and if you don't understand why that is, then you're not nearly the man I was told you are. I'm leaving now, and I'm going to assume we're done. But if you threaten me again, you had better bring help. — G.S. Jennsen

A wispy murmur in the blackness. Blackness, where before there was only nothingness. It was dark, inky and thick, but there now existed the palpable sense of tangibility.

She gasped in alarm, but no sound came out of her throat.

"Where am I?," she shouted, but no words made it past her lips. — G.S. Jennsen

I think it was just an opera. Now, you go to opera, you expect to see and hear what the opera is. So, it was Catfish Row. It was singers. Marvelous voices. It didn't make no difference what color they were. — Cab Calloway

He was terrified he was making the wrong choice. He relied on his instincts in his work but now he didn't dare trust them. The wound of betrayal still burned raw in his chest and another cut might be the killing blow.

But it was the end of the world and there may be no more second chances. — G.S. Jennsen

You're trying to be cool now, Leif? Seriously?"
"I am the shit, home slice, straight up," he replied.
"No. I mean, don't get me wrong, this is a great effort, but you still need to use more contractions. And your tone is so formal, it's like you're complimenting the pudding at a duke's dinner party."
"Fucking H!" the vampire shouted, shaking his free left fist. He enunciated the g very clearly and projected his voice from his diaphragm, like a trained opera singer.
"It's fuckin' A, not H, but yeah Leif, go ahead, let's throw down. — Kevin Hearne

Erik, Erik! I saved your life! Remember? You were scentenced to death! But for me you would be dead by now. — Gaston Leroux

I ride horseback - arthritic knees permitting - or listen to opera. Sometimes I cook. I used to do needlework, but it's hard on my hands now, so I only do it occasionally, but I like it. And, of course, I read. — Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

A stage adaptation of The Giver has been performed in cities and towns across the USA for years. More recently an opera has been composed and performed. And soon there will be a film. Does The Giver have the same effect when it is presented in a different way: It's hard to know. A book, to me is almost sacrosanct: such an individual and private thing. The reader brings his or her own history and beliefs and concerns, and reads in solitude, creating each scene from his own imagination as he does. There is no fellow ticket-holder in the next seat. The important thing is that another medium
stage, film, music
doesn't obliterate a book. The movie is here now, on a big screen, with stars and costumes and a score. But the book hasn't gone away. It has simply grown up, grown larger, and begun to glisten in a new way. — Lois Lowry

I want you to take off the mask, Erik, do you hear me? I want you to take it off right now.
-Luciana — Susan Kay

He swallowed hard, annoyed at the sudden dryness in his throat. No reason to become all emotional about it now. He had already sold his soul for a chance at vengeance, and there was no getting it back. — G.S. Jennsen