Von Trapp Quotes & Sayings

Music- what a powerful instrument, what a mighty weapon! — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

What is the usual reaction among our friends and neighbors if in a family something unexpected happens? ... Telephone and [email] are immediately put to work ... and the incident is discussed for days on end. It is no wonder there is no time left in which to ponder on what it might mean, what message God might want to bring home to us by permitting this or that to happen in our lives ... 'To ponder' is an all-but-forgotten art in our days. Who thinks? We don't need to anymore. The TV and [internet] do it for us. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

Jukeboxes, radio and television, going from dawn to dusk, help spread the poison of synthetic, artificial, rhythmical noise. — Maria Franziska Von Trapp

Off the southeast tip of Italy a young Austrian U-boat commander named Georg von Trapp, later to gain eternal renown when played by Christopher Plummer in the film The Sound of Music, fired two torpedoes into a large French cruiser, the Leon Gambetta. The ship sank in nine minutes, killing 684 sailors. "So that's what war looks like!" von Trapp wrote in a later memoir. He told his chief officer, "We are like highway men, sneaking up on an unsuspecting ship in such a cowardly fashion." Fighting in a trench or aboard a torpedo boat would have been better, he said. "There you hear shooting, hear your comrades fall, you hear the wounded groaning - you become filled with rage and can shoot men in self defense or fear; at an assault you can even yell! But we! Simply cold-blooded to drown a mass of men in an ambush! — Erik Larson

When you are a child of the mountains yourself, you really belong to them. You need them. They become the faithful guardians of your life. If you cannot dwell on their lofty heights all your life, if you are in trouble, you want at least to look at them. — Maria Franziska Von Trapp

I can't seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what's worse, I can't seem to stop saying things
anything and everything I think and feel. — Maria Von Trapp

A refugee is not just someone lacking in money and everything else. A refugee is vulnerable to the slightest touch: he has lost his country, his friends, his earthly belongings. He is a stranger, sick at heart. He is suspicious; he feels misunderstood. If people smile, he thinks they ridicule him; if they look serious, he thinks they don't like him. He is a full-grown tree in the dangerous process of being transplanted, with the chance of possibly not being able to take root in the new soil. — Maria Franziska Von Trapp

At the age of eight, I auditioned for 'The Sound of Music' and made it through to the third round, where we all stood in a row like the Von Trapp family and had to sing. — Michelle Dockery

I was slowly taking on the dimensions of a chest of drawers. — Maria Franziska Von Trapp

The grief of a child is always terrible. It is bottomless, without hope. A child has no past and no future. It just lives in the present moment - wholeheartedly. If the present moment spells disaster, the child suffers it with his whole heart, his whole soul, his whole strength, his whole little being ... — Maria Franziska Von Trapp

Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

If one doesn't have a character like Abraham Lincoln or Joan of Arc, a diet simply disintegrates into eating exactly what you want to eat, but with a bad conscience. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

I created the role of Captain Von Trapp. — Theodore Bikel

But there is that certain something about wanting to do the will of God. If one is sincere and if one really wants to know what His will is, all one has to do is be quiet. Shut off the television and radio, and in that silence one will always hear that still small voice in one's heart telling him what to do. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

We are not poor. We just don't have any money! — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

Growing up, I had one very specific idea of what a wedding should be, and that was the wedding of Fraulein Maria and Captain von Trapp in 'The Sound of Music.' — Ellie Kemper

I was Aladdin, and then I was Captain Von Trapp from 'Sound Of Music' when I was 7 or 8, and then King Arthur. I was always the lead. I've always enjoyed being onstage, acting obnoxious, being someone that wasn't me, hiding behind a character. — Christopher Mintz-Plasse

How dry eyes can get when they are not allowed to cry! — Maria Franziska Von Trapp

Austrian U-boat commander named Georg von Trapp, later to gain eternal renown when played by Christopher Plummer in the film The Sound of Music, fired two torpedoes into a large French cruiser, the Leon Gambetta. The ship sank in nine minutes, killing 684 sailors. "So that's what war looks like!" von Trapp wrote in a later memoir. He told his chief officer, "We are like highway men, sneaking up on an unsuspecting ship in such a cowardly fashion. — Erik Larson

One of the greatest things in human life is the ability to make plans. Even if they never come true-the joy of anticipating is irrevocably yours. That way one can live many more than just one life. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

Love is an excellent thing and a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy. It bears a burden without being weighted, and renders sweet all that is bitter. Love knows no limits, feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, because it believes that it may and can do all things; for this reason it is able to do all, performing much where he who does not love fails and falls. Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Like a living flame, a burning torch, it tends upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. Whatever faults may be committed, big or small, whatever clouds may pile up on the horizon, dark and threatening, love will overcome all. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

We learned the shocking truth that "home" isn't necessarily a certain spot on earth. It must be a place where you can "feel" at home, which means "free" to us. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

The sun has set in your life; it is getting cold. The hundreds of people around you cannot console you for the loss of the one. — Maria Von Trapp

It will be very interesting one day to follow the pattern of our life as it is spread out like a beautiful tapestry. As long as we live here we see only the reverse side of the weaving, and very often the pattern, with its threads running wildly, doesn't seem to make sense. Some day, however, we shall understand.
In looking back over the years we can discover how a red thread goes through the pattern of our life: the Will of God. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

American Christians have been woefully silent on important issues. I am an American citizens now, and I love this country, but I see symptoms in the United States that I saw in Austria in 1938 when the Nazi Germans were terrorizing Europe. — Maria Von Trapp

No work, as long as it is decent, can ever disgrace anybody. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

I feel like a von Trapp," Ruby said between puffs, "But fatter, older and with absolutely no energy for singing. — Kate Morton

The most striking difference between little ones and grownups is that little ones cannot worry, and they cannot worry because they have no past and no future. They live only in the present moment. Just watch children. If they play, they play and don't even hear us call them and don't notice anything that is going on around them. If they eat, they eat; if they sleep, they sleep. There is a beautiful English word which describes how they do whatever they do, they do it 'whole-heartedly', whereas grownups always are half-hearted. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

We have now the precious opportunity to find out for ourselves whether the words we have heard and read so often can be taken literally: 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added until you'. — Maria Von Trapp