Top 34 George Gershwin Quotes
#1. I didn't even start playing the piano until I was about 13 or 14. I guess I must have had a little talent or whatever-you-call-it, but I practised regularly, and that's what counts.
George Gershwin
#3. A skyscraper is at the same time a triumph of the machine and a tremendous emotional experience, almost breath-taking. Not merely its height but its mass and proportions are the result of an emotion, as well as of calculation.
George Gershwin
#4. Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas.
George Gershwin
#5. I want to say at once that I frankly believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived ... His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbor. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert.
George Gershwin
#6. When I'm in my normal mood, music drips from my fingers.
George Gershwin
#7. Look at the piano. You'll notice that there are white notes and black notes. Figure out the difference between them and you'll be able to make whatever kind of music you want.
George Gershwin
#8. Life is a lot like jazz - it's best when you improvise.
George Gershwin
#10. Jazz is one of the best things that you can find in your life, it can always be your friend.
George Gershwin
#11. Writing music is not so much inspiration as hard work.
George Gershwin
#12. It took me three weeks to write the 'Rhapsody in Blue.' I had always wanted to write something blue and Paul Whiteman inspired.
George Gershwin
#13. Upper berth, lower berth, that's the difference between talent and genius.
George Gershwin
#14. The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself ... Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel.
George Gershwin
#15. Porgy is ... an interesting example of what can be done by talent in spite of a bad setup. With a libretto that should never have been accepted on a subject that should never have been chosen, a man who should never have attempted it has written a work that has a considerable power.
George Gershwin
#16. All these tales of people sitting down and composing symphonies just as though they were writing a letter are very much exaggerated; at least, it isn't that way in my work.
George Gershwin
#17. When jazz is played in another nation, it is called American. When it is played in another country, it sounds false. Jazz is the result of the energy stored up in America.
George Gershwin
#19. It sounds simple, of course, but personally I can think of no more mentally arduous task than making music.
George Gershwin
#21. Out of my entire annual output of songs, perhaps two, or at the most three, came as a result of inspiration. We can never rely on inspiration. When we most want it, it does not come.
George Gershwin
#22. Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music.
George Gershwin
#23. What the hell do you want to work for somebody else for? Work for yourself!
George Gershwin
#24. For suddenly, I saw you there And through foggy London town The sun was shining everywhere ...
George Gershwin
#26. Originality is the only thing that counts. But the originator uses material and ideas that occur round him and pass through him. And out of his experience comes the original creation.
George Gershwin
#27. Gershwin's tragedy was not that he failed to cross the tracks, but rather that he did, and once there in his new habitat, was deprived of the chance to plunge his roots firmly into the new soil.
George Gershwin
#28. Why should I limit myself to only one woman when I can have as many women as I want?
George Gershwin
#29. The European boys have small ideas but they sure know how to dress 'em up.
George Gershwin
#30. The extraordinary thing about my mother, she's so modest about me.
George Gershwin
#32. True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time.
George Gershwin
#33. Music sets up certain vibration which unquestionably results in a physical reaction. Eventually the proper vibration for every person will be found and utilized.
George Gershwin
#34. All great composers of the past spent most of their time studying. Feeling alone won't do the job. A man also needs technique.
George Gershwin
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