Quiet Music Quotes & Sayings

My poems are more my silence than my speech. Just as music is a kind of quiet. Sounds are needed only to unveil the various layers of silence. — Anna Kamienska

I can't say that I'm always writing in my head but I do spend a lot of time in my head writing or coming up with ideas. And what I do usually is write the music and melody and then, you know, maybe the basic idea. But when I feel that I don't have a song or just say, God, please give me another song. And I just am quiet and it happens. — Stevie Wonder

You're a quiet one. You keep to yourself, but when you speak up, you tell the truth: in your music and every other way. — Cinda Williams Chima

Suddenly it was terribly quiet, as if the earth itself were too stunned to breathe. I know this sound; silence is part of music. But just because something is silent doesn't mean you aren't hearing it. Frankie — Mitch Albom

She shakily rushed towards the car to find Alecto casually standing beside it, smoking a cigarette and staring fixedly on the radio as it played the song 'Draggin' the Line' by Tommy James, his expression thoughtful. "What are you thinking about?" Mandy questioned.
"Wouldn't the world be a very loud place to live if we said everything we thought?" Alecto asked quietly. — Rebecca McNutt

Where Hans Hubermann and Erik Vandenburg were ultimately united by music, Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words. — Markus Zusak

Music doth extenuate fears furies appeaseth cruelty abateth heaviness and to such as are wakeful it causeth quiet rest; it cures all irksomeness and heaviness of soul. — Cassiodorus

Walking up to the screened porch, however, I felt as strange and disconnected as I had ever been in my entire life. It was as if I were two people: a man who was a capable detective, a loving husband, and a devoted father who was heading toward a quiet little house in the South, and an unsure and fearful boy of eight trudging toward a home that might be filled with music, love, and joy or, just as easily, screaming, turmoil, and madness. — James Patterson

With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city. Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. — Ursula K. Le Guin

In church, they have the music where you jump and you shout, you know, and then you have the quiet music where you're sitting, you're meditating. — Darlene Love

When I take my hand out of this blanket," he thought, "my nail will be grown back, my hands will be clean. My body will be clean. I'll have on clean shorts, clean undershirt, a white shirt. A blue polka-dot tie. A gray suit with a stripe, and I'll be home, and I'll bolt the door. I'll put some coffee on the stove, some records on the phonograph, and I'll bolt the door. I'll read my books and I'll drink coffee and I'll listen to music, and I'll bolt the door. I'll open the window, I'll let in a nice, quiet girl
not Frances, not anyone I've ever known
and I'll bolt the door. I'll ask her to read some Emily Dickinson to me
that one about being chartless
and I'll ask her to read some William Blake to me
that one about the little lamb that made thee
and I'll bolt the door. She'll have an American voice, and she won't ask me if I have any chewing gum or bonbons, and I'll bolt the door. — J.D. Salinger

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!
There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep. — Elizabeth Bishop

The music that I'm known for is quiet and gentle, although when I was growing up and as a teenager, I was playing the opposite - I was screaming and playing bass and those loud electric guitars. — Jose Gonzalez

Several times a day, stop and just listen. Open your hearing 360 degrees, as if your ears were giant radar dishes. Listen to the obvious sounds, and the subtle sounds-in your body, in the room, in the building, and outside. Listen as if you had just landed from a foreign planet and didn't know what was making these sounds. See if you can hear all sounds as music being played just for you. Even in what is called silence there is sound. To hear such subtle sound, the mind must be very quiet. — Jan Chozen Bays

When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can. — Jennifer Donnelly

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness. — Leo Tolstoy

I hate restaurants that play music. You come out for a quiet meal, and you're supposed to put up with all this booming. Why? It's madness! — Peter Capaldi

Then the music begins and we can both hear the slow, quiet, sweet desperation of a song I won't mention. Imagine the softest, toughest, most beautiful song you know, and you've got it. — Markus Zusak

There are two types of folk music: quiet folk music and loud folk music. I play both. — Dave Alvin

My parents were not musical, and they were not effervescent people; everything was very quiet. The music that I played was loud; it used to drive them up the wall. My father died, and that was a tragedy for everybody, but suddenly I didn't have anybody to stop me from doing what I wanted to do. — Don McLean

Art, after all, is traditionally displayed against vacancies: paintings on dun walls, sculptures in empty spaces, music in quiet halls. — John Hart

I don't listen to so much music now. I did when I was younger. Music is so much part of my work. I like peace and quiet now when I go home. — Elaine Paige

He felt as though he were a prism, gathering up God's love like white light and scattering it in all directions, and the sensation was nearly physical, as he caught and repeated as much of what everyone said to him as he could, soaking up the music and cadence, the pattern of phonemes on the fly, gravely accepting and repeating Askama's quiet corrections when he got things wrong. — Mary Doria Russell

Because ... most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you don't have any of that. There's nothing between you and despair, and you don't seem a very desperate person.'
'Too stupid.'
'You're not stupid. So why don't you ever put your head in the oven?'
'I don't know. There's always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode.'
'Exactly.'
'That's the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus.' It was worse than he thought.
'No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I don't know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you don't think life's too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food. — Nick Hornby

Awake

Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and
choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach
in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it's quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose, they croon, the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon,
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances. — The Doors

I listen to music a lot, if I need to get into a particular space. I do stretching and breathing, and take time to mostly be quiet and find the stillness. I think that's important. — Zachary Quinto

Bach takes you to a very quiet place within yourself, to the inner core, a place where you are calm and at peace. — Yo-Yo Ma

Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night! — Hermann Hesse

God speaks to you all the time ~ Have you tuned in to the cosmic vibrations of love, harmony, peace, and truth? Unless you quieten that blabbering little mind of yours, you won't be able to listen to the Divine music that plays on and on...
Just for one heavenly second, shut your eyes, ears, and mind to the cacophonous noises of this physical, illusionary, temporary world. Exit all the drama.
Just for that one heavenly second, stay quiet and simply listen. Listen to the ambrosial sound. It vibrates with joy.
You can have more of this soulful peace in your life, if only you choose to align yourself with the Source of Love and Light. The more you stay attuned to "Home", the less you'd wander in-vain. — Manprit Kaur

If a man were to spend years of his life trying to discover the chemical constituency of salt water without bothering to find out what has already been said on the subject in any elementary chemistry book, we should say that he was making very imperfect use of the resources available to us. Similarly, can it not be said that people, worrying themselves sick over their individual frustrations, constantly suffering from petty irritations and hypertensions, are making extremely imperfect use of the available human resources of adjustment when they fail to strengthen and quiet themselves through contact with literature, music, painting, and the other arts? — S.I. Hayakawa

I did several shows with Jimi Hendrix, that's when I got to know him better, I knew of him, I met him [when he was playing] with Little Richard ... And he was kind of quiet, shy, he didn't open up too much, but there were questions as we all ask each other. You know, "how do you do this" and "why do you do that ... " We had very small discussions on things like that. And he was very polite, I thought [he was] a very nice guy ... — B.B. King

One practice I rely on all the time is basic meditation which allows me to strip away the noise. Its like the old-fashioned dial on the radio, where you were getting static and then you found that clear, sweet spot on the dial, where the music would come through. That's what meditation is for me. Dialing out the static, the noise, the anxiety, the fear, and coming into a place that's deep and quiet. It's like dropping into a well of inspiration and wisdom. — Elizabeth Lesser

That's what music is to me. Like, stuff that I really like to play loud. And I've got my quiet CDs, too, that I listen to around the house, but if you can't go there, then ... Everyone gets so upset with me, I can't win. — Liz Phair

Finally Lucinda grew used to her silence, and began not only to accept it, but treasure it. She too grew quiet. For the first time she heard the music of her heart. — John Speed

Each person comes to have this musical experience, this moment with us, where they get to sink into our world for a little while. It's this very unhurried world. It's fairly quiet, it's contemplative, but it can be quite panoramic. I think people think interesting thoughts at our shows, and they go rather deeply into some personal experience of their own. I'm really proud that our music seems to connect, because it's not for everybody. But for the people that our music works for, it really gets down pretty deep in there. — Gillian Welch

It is a great, a pleasant thing to have a friend with whom to walk, untroubled, through the woods, by the stream, saying nothing, at peace
the heart all clean and quiet and empty, ready for the spirit that may choose to be its guest. — Catherine Drinker Bowen

I am a late starter. I like to go on into the night when it's quiet and everything has shut down. I find that's where music and minds open in the dark. — Shelby Lynne

A quiet mind allows the artist to tap into the wellspring of Divine Music within. — Kenny Werner

By day, Venice is a city of museums and churches, packed with great art. Linger over lunch, trying to crack a crustacean with weird legs and antennae. At night, when the hordes of day-trippers have gone, another Venice appears. Dance across a floodlit square. Glide in a gondola through quiet canals while music echoes across the water. Pretend it's Carnevale time, don a mask - or just a fresh shirt - and become someone else for a night. — Rick Steves

I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big voices too; just different than mine. — Beth Ditto

If I'm on a train, with headphones, MP3s are great. At home, I prefer CD or vinyl, partly because they sound a little better in a quiet room and partly because they're finite in length and separate things, unlike the endless days and days of music stored on my laptop. — Jonny Greenwood

I record all night and sleep all day. It started because you're excited about the music and you want to stay up longer, but over 15 years, it's become a habit. In my circle, I think a lot of musicians operate like this. When the place is quiet, you're more creative. I have plenty of people I can call at 4 A.M. and know they'll be up. — Damian Marley

Navigating with a partner makes it half as difficult. We keep each other in check. It's not like she [Angie Marr] was ever a quiet little wifey wife behind the scenes. She's exactly like me. She's very smart. We're very lucky that we've always wanted the same things. She loves guitar music, she loves important records, and our lives are about records and shows and great bands. — Johnny Marr

I was very quiet until I got at the piano, and weekends, lunch breaks, after school, before school, I was just making music. — Emeli Sande

Be Sure to Take Time Take time to think: it is the source of great ideas. Take time to read: it is the foundation of wisdom. Take time to joke and play: it is the secret of staying young. Take time to be quiet: it is the opportunity to hear God. Take time to pray: it is the greatest power on earth. Take time to see others' needs: it is the opportunity to help others. Take time to love and be loved: it is God's greatest gift. Take time to praise God: It is the road to worship. Take time to laugh: it is the music of the soul. — Aurora A. Ambrose

Alif found himself succumbing to the silence of the place, a quiet so open and broad that it seemed almost to roar, as though it was not silence at all but music in some ancient inaudible key. His eyes drifted shut and he slept without dreaming. — G. Willow Wilson

Quiet book-learning in monasteries and ethereal music, sonnets and courtly lovethat stuff is all fantasyand veneer? You couldn't afford to let the beauty of the thing seduce you too far or you forgot the truth and the truth was always hard as iron bloody bars. — Janice Galloway

I'm really an inner spirit that only makes itself known through the music. A lot of people think I'm an introvert, or quiet and moody. I've even heard some people say that there's a certain mystery or darkness about me. I'm not that way. I'm just really into what I do. — Faith Evans

I don't actually listen to much music since I need quiet to work. — Johanna Lindsey

It's quiet in the car, in a good way for once. No words, no music. Silence seems right. I roll down the windows and lean my head against the door frame, listening to the wind rush by and smelling the pine trees. I watch the stars materialize, like someone is dimming the switch on the night sky so each shining dot grows brighter and brighter. — Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

And I think that's a lot of the reason why when you start to fragment your audience, you start to think about what you're looking for, you'll go to different spaces, and it parallels what we do as adults. You go to different bars when you're in the mood for different things. You see different people when you want to go listen to music or when you just want to have a quiet drink with a couple of friends. — Danah Boyd

He took it in for a moment. No internet. No phone service beyond the front desk. No television. No news. No information flow at all. Just a music collection and, somewhere, a library he evidently had to be medically fit to browse. It was quiet. It was actually quiet. He couldn't even hear other people. This little room was as close to sensory deprivation as he'd experienced since ... when? Childhood? — Warren Ellis

I love silence. And one of the paradoxes about the way I live and also about my work is that definitely one of the reasons I went into music, and especially into composing is that I love setting up an environment where I can be by myself for long periods of time and have everything as quiet as possible, either to think about sound, or to think about ideas, or just to focus on things that are important to me. — Tod Machover

IT WAS NIGHT AGAIN. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts. The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn's sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music . . . but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained. — Patrick Rothfuss

On July 2, McCandless finished reading Tolstoy's "Family Happiness", having marked several passages that moved him:
"He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others ...
I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books , music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps - what more can the heart of a man desire?" ... — Jon Krakauer

My father was quiet ' she told him. 'My mother was not. They were polar opposites but you'd think they were a match made in heaven the way he loved her and she him. He'd sit and listen to her play for hours like it was their special language. I miss that the most their music. It made me feel ... part of something beautiful. — Amalie Howard

I was pretty quiet as a child. I kind of hung out with my family and listened to music and sh*t. I wasn't too outgoing at all. — James Hetfield

Silence is the worst. Whenever a thick cloud of silence descends, the yapping voices inside me become all the more audible, rising to the surface one by one. I like to believe I know all the women in this inner harm of mine but perhaps there are those I have never met. Together they make a choir that does not know how to tone down. I call them the Choir of Discordant Voices. It is a bizarre choir, now that I think about it. Not only are they all off-key, none of them can read notes. In fact, there is no music at all in what they do. They all talk at the same time, each in a voice louder than the other, never listening to what is being said. They make me afraid of my own diversity, the fragmentation inside of me. That is why I do not like the quiet. I even find it unpleasant, unsettling. — Elif Shafak

I try to make my music have the quiet spaces of folk, the intimacy, and the energy of rock. — Jane Siberry

The fifties are a peaceful time, a quiet sleeping time between two noisy bursts of years, a blue and white time filled with sweet yellow days, music and bright smelling memories. — David Gerrold

Some writers like to work in other places like coffee shops, but I can't - I'd end up people-watching. And if I were at a bookstore, I'd be reading. Sometimes I have some music on, but usually I like it quiet. — Julie Kagawa

Their silence was not the result of boredom or apathy, nor were they quiet because it was expected of them or through fear of consequences; but they were listening, actively, attentively listening to those records, with the same raptness they had shown in their jiving; their bodies were still, but I could feel that their minds and spirits were involved with the music. I glanced towards Miss Blanchard and as though she divined my thoughts she smiled at me and nodded in understanding ... — E.R. Braithwaite

If all the skies were sunshine Our faces would be fain To feel once more upon them The cooling splash of rain. If all the world were music, Our hearts would often long For one sweet strain of silence, To break the endless song If life were always merry, Our souls would seek relief, And rest from weary laughter In the quiet arms of grief. — Henry Van Dyke

It is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness, of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment ... the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is negation canonized as the one positive virtue. It is the prohibition of happiness. It is slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God. A savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world. — Sinclair Lewis

Everything freezes. The blood stops flowing in my veins. My breath stops coming. For a second even the music falls aways and all I hear is something steady and quiet and pretty, like the distant beat of a drum, and I think, i'm hearing my heart, except I know that's impossible, because my heart has stopped too. — Lauren Oliver

He was sensitive, quiet. He liked parties that were small and intimate, where you could connect with people, hear one another's thoughts, not parties with roaring music, meat markets where you couldn't hear one another think. — Jane Green

I did miss the music a bit - but only in the wings, when I was waiting to go on. It seemed dreadfully quiet, rather unnerving. But the wonderful thing was that one didn't have to be quite so obsessive about one's health, and one's voice. — Elaine Paige

Looking back, I think that's why I did music. I'd get home from school and the house would be so quiet. — Dido Armstrong

It seemed so simple in a lot of ways, to use a basic melody to pull away from myself. To ease the pain and hide my feelings deep within a metaphor that only I understood. I couldn't have foreseen that my quiet and dark night of the soul would start me down a path of expression through song. — Mike Ericksen

To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind. — William James

They sat a few meters apart, speaking very rarely, and there was really only the noise of turning pages ( ... ) Where Hans Hubermann and Erik Vandenburg were ultimately united by music, Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words.
"Hi, Max."
"Hi, Liesel."
They would sit and read. — Markus Zusak

... especially the young ones, come into the canyon for the first time, quiet as deer, some of them, coming to your hand for salt: their dark eyes wide and gleaming with the wonder and the fear we had all felt at seeing for the first time life as our dreams had always imagined it ... at seeing so many people with whom they could fall in love. The old enchantment composed of lights, music, people was transfixing them for the first time, and it made their faces even more touching. — Andrew Holleran

Along the way, I've had different advice from different music producers. I've been told to tone it down, that the quiet parts of my voice are appealing and there's harshness to the loud part of my voice. — Patty Griffin

Pharrell's affected everyone through music. To work with someone like that - it's a gift. You ever meet somebody you can learn so much from, and all you have to do is be quiet and watch? That's what it was like. I took in how he moves, speaks, how he creates, the whole nine. — Shameik Moore

We're living in a time when parenting is not at all mirroring the way I was parented. For me, I just followed my parents around on their errands; when they were busy on the phone, I was quiet. It's a different kettle of fish these days: They run the house, and you listen to their music, and you go to their appointments. — Edie Falco

My mom tells this story that even when I was in the womb, my father played the piano and she sang. So, before I officially got here, I was already surrounded by music. I also like the way my father explains it. When I was about 3-years old, in order to keep me quiet, my father would put me in the bassinet and either put on some music or play the piano. When he started playing, I got quiet and eventually went to sleep. He said by the time I turned 3, I just climbed up on the piano and started playing it with the attitude of I'm gonna play dis here piano. — Cyrus Chestnut

She wrote her stories, and they were read and enjoyed - or so Lenore claimed - by many. Josephine enjoyed quiet society and music and books and gardening. — Elizabeth Hunter

It reminded him of the Sound of Music. Myron liked the ole Julie Andrews musical well enough. who didn't? but he always found one song particularly dumb. One of the classics, actually. My Favorite Things. The song made no sense. Ask a zillion people to list their absolute favorite things, and how many of them are going to list doorbells for crying out loud.
You know what, Milly, I love doorbells. To hell with strolling on a quiet beach, or reading a great book, or making love or seeing a broadway musical. Doorbells, Milly, doorbells really punch my ticket. Sometimes I just run up to people's houses and press their doorbells and, well, I think i am man enough to admit I shutter. — Harlan Coben

Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps ... perhaps ... love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath. — L.M. Montgomery

It's one that still happens, actually ... forgetting a part of a difficult piece. Usually, the chances of it happening are directly proportional to how quiet and attentive the audience is. — Steve Morse

His men had begun gathering the wounded or stunned into a small group some distance back up the slope. Here and there an animal or human stirred, but not many. There were few cries of pain or fear now. Mostly, it was eerily quiet. Even the insects had ceased their music. — Derek Donais

The experience of playing music at a young age really opens up one's mind to different melody in life itself, literally - like, when you've even played a recorder, or whatever, it becomes a lot easier to hear the beauty in a bird's song, or the quiet tune in a gentle rustle of the wind. — Dave Smalley

But we have seen how brightly light shines in the dark, how sweetly music fills the quiet. All these years you have known only shadow and silence, and we have so much to show you. To save you.
I am not worth saving.
We are all worth saving.
How can you know?
We cannot ever know, not truly.
But we have faith. — Amie Kaufman

When I auditioned actors I never make them act. I choose a long symphony, then I tell them to sit down and I play the symphony for them. Then I sit and I look at them. I always pick a piece of music that has up and downs, very dramatic parts, very quiet parts and really sensitive parts so that it can produce different emotions. — Pirjo Honkasalo

Actually when I'm depressed or feeling down, I seem to play quiet music and enjoy the time. So I listen to a lot of ballads and I try to enjoy the time with music. — Kim Tae-yeon

Led Zep played with light and shade, ear-splitting noise and echoing quiet. They could do it all. — Quinton Skinner

You," I said, "have this whole tall, dark stranger thing going on. Not to mention the tortured artist bit."
"Bit?"
"You know what I mean."
He shook his head, clearly discounting this description. "And you," he said, "have that whole blonde, cool and collected, perfect smart girl thing going on."
"You're the boy all the girls want to rebel with," I said.
"You," he replied, "are the unattainable girl in the homeroom who never gives a guy the time of the day."
There was a blast of music from inside, a thump of bass beat, then quiet again.
"I'm not perfect," I said. "Not even close."
"I'm not tortured. Unless you count this conversation. — Sarah Dessen

The artist reconstructs the world to his plan. The symphonies of
nature know no rests. The world is never quiet; even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in
vibrations that escape our ears. As for those that we perceive, they carry sounds to us, occasionally a
chord, never a melody. Music exists, however, in which symphonies are completed, where melody gives
its form to sounds that by themselves have none, and where, finally, a particular arrangement of notes
extracts from natural disorder a unity that is satisfying to the mind and the heart. — Albert Camus

Theology is
or should be
a species of poetry,which read quickly or encountered in a hubbub of noise makes no sense. You have to open yourself to a poem with a quiet, receptive mind, in the same way you might listen to a difficult piece of music ... If you seize upon a poem and try to extort its meaning before you are ready, it remains opaque. If you bring your own personal agenda to bear upon it, the poem will close upon itself like a clam, because you have denied its unique and separate identity, its inviolate holiness. — Karen Armstrong

Start meditating. Start putting off the constant chattering of the head. Slowly, the mind becomes quiet. Get into things where the mind is not needed - for example, dancing. Dance, and dance to abandon, because in dance the mind is not needed. You can lose yourself in a dance. In losing yourself in a dance, the heart will start functioning again. Drown yourself in music. And slowly you will see that there is a totally different world of the heart. And in the heart there is always trust. The heart does not know how to doubt, just as the mind does not know how to trust. — Osho

I was a quiet, nerdy kid living in the Bronx. I spent most of my teens in my room, taking apart electrical items to figure out how they worked before putting them back together, and listening to the music my four older sisters and parents played. — Grandmaster Flash

I slipped into the music room and, with my backpack still in my lap like a shield. I took a seat at a piano old enough to have been carried over the ark. The room was small, quiet.
A sanctuary.
It was always this way for me. Teh stored instruments in the closets called out like old friends. The bent and scratched black music stands welcomed me to thier home. The oily smell, a perfume. It was like ... church. — Jenny B. Jones

It was so interesting, when [John Coltrane] created A Love Supreme. He had meditated that week. I almost didn't see him downstairs. And it was so quiet! There was no sound, no practice! He was up there meditating, and when he came down he said, "I have a whole new music!" He said, "There is a new recording that I will do, I have it all, everything." And it was so beautiful! He was like Moses coming down from the mountain. And when he recorded it, he knew everything, everything. He said this was the first time that he had all the music in his head at once to record. — Alice Coltrane

I am a confused Musician who got sidetracked into this goddamn Word business for so long that I never got back to music - except maybe when I find myself oddly alone in a quiet room with only a typewriter to strum on and a yen to write a song. Who knows why? Maybe I just feel like singing - so I type.
These quick electric keys are my Instrument, my harp, my RCA glass-tube microphone, and my fine soprano saxophone all at once. That is my music, for good or ill, and on some nights it will make me feel like a god. Veni, Vidi, Vici ... That is when the fun starts ... — Hunter S. Thompson

Sunflowers and seashells and logarithmic spirals (said Kerewin); sweep of galaxies and the singing curve of the universe (said Kerewin); the oscilating wave thrumming in the nothingness of every atom's heart (said Kerewin); did you think I could build a square house? So the round shell house holds them all in its spiralling embrace. Noise and riot, peace and quiet, all is music in this sphere. — Keri Hulme

Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest...
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves' voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must seen him torn. — Luci Shaw

As soon as we had the music arranged on our stands, Conductor Li tapped his baton on the lectern and called us to attention. "Quiet please, comrades! And as we play just think of the Long March," he said. "I will be at the front, like Chairman Mao. I will beat the time. Try to keep up. If you get lost, skip a few pages. Hopefully, the rest of us will pass your way eventually... The first movement sounded like nothing less than a full-scale military retreat. We were ambushed by missing pages of score, by an impulsive feint by the cellists and double basses, and by a flautist who turned two pages rather than one and played along happily in no man's land for a dozen or so bars until he was rapped on the head with the end of a clarinet (pg 325) — John Sinclair

When I start a film, I can sort of shut my eyes, sit somewhere quiet and imagine the movie finished. I can imagine the camera angles, I can even imagine the type of music. Without knowing the tune, I can imagine the type of music it needs to be. — Peter Jackson

And then more quiet, silence so deep it almost drowned out the roar of the night music that pounded away in my secret self. — Jeff Lindsay

I don't really listen to music when I work. I really have to focus on one thing at a time. I like a lot of quiet and peace when I'm working or when I'm thinking or when I'm reading. — Shahzia Sikander