Saturday, January 30, 2010


The Spirit lasts -- but in what mode --
Below, the Body speaks,
But as the Spirit furnishes --
Apart, it never talks --
The Music in the Violin
Does not emerge alone
But Arm in Arm with Touch, yet Touch
Alone -- is not a Tune --
The Spirit lurks within the Flesh
Like Tides within the Sea
That make the Water live, estranged
What would the Either be?

-- Emily Dickinson
(in Heaven's Face Thinly Veiled,
edited by Sarah Anderson)

Saturday, January 23, 2010


Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.

-- Charlie Parker
(in Notations: Quotations on Music,
edited by Sallye Leventhal)

Saturday, January 16, 2010


All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.

-- Rumi
(from The Enlightened Heart,
edited by Stephen Mitchell)

Saturday, January 9, 2010


. . . but the highest reaches of music come thrillingly close to the central core and essence of life itself.

--- Leopold Stokowski
(in Music: A Book of Quotations,
edited by Herb Galewitz)

Saturday, January 2, 2010


I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear . . .
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else . . .
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

-- Walt Whitman
(from Walt Whitman: Selected Poems)