Virgil Thomson Quotes

#1. I thought it would be nice to marry Virgil [Thomson] to have a musical background, but I never got far with the project.

Peggy Guggenheim

#2. The fearsome critic and not-very-tough composer Virgil Thomson once drew up a set of rules for hearing an unfamiliar work; the last of those is the question I take with me to every new-music event: "Is this just a good piece of clockwork, or does it actually tell time?

Aaron Copland

#3. [Gertrude Stein] really needed someone like Virgil Thomson, whom she respected, to sit on her a bit and make her devise some plot.

James Laughlin

#4. Let your mind alone, and see what happens.

Virgil Thomson

#5. I'm particularly interested in the public role that all buildings play. I believe that we architects should try to go beyond our basic obligations to the public, and our opportunities to do so are many.

Cesar Pelli

#6. I refuse to live in a constant fighting match, Landon. It will not do!'
'And I've tried living without you, and it just won't do!

J.L. Sheppard

#7. The description and explanation is the best part of music reviewing. There is such a thing, and you know it too, as a gift for judgment. If you have it, you can say anything you like. If you haven't got it, you don't know you haven't got it.

Virgil Thomson

#8. The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish.

Virgil Thomson

#9. I don't care what other critics say, I only hope to be played.

Virgil Thomson

#10. Reviewing music or reviewing anything is a writing job. It's nice if you are experienced in the field you are writing about, but writing is what you are doing.

Virgil Thomson

#11. Musicians own music because music owns them.

Virgil Thomson

#12. I don't go around regretting things that don't happen.

Virgil Thomson

#13. I look at you and I write down what I hear.

Virgil Thomson

#14. I never learned to verbalize an abstract musical concept. No thank you. The whole point of being a serious musician is to avoid verbalization whenever you can.

Virgil Thomson

#15. You explain how it went, and as far as you can figure out how it got that way.

Virgil Thomson

#16. Every composer's music reflects in its subject-matter and in its style the source of the money the composer is living on while writing the music.

Virgil Thomson

#17. I've never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.

Virgil Thomson

#18. Someone's looking for a lead, in his duty to a king or creed. Protecting what he feels is right, fights against wrong with his life.

Robert Palmer

#19. A libretto that should never have been accepted on a subject that should never have been chosen bya man who should never have attempted it.

Virgil Thomson

#20. What brings you happiness?" "Mr. Cohen . . ." "Benny." "Benny, I don't really think much about it. I just go about my life day to day. Stuff happens. Some good. Some bad. I don't know what's at the end of the rainbow, or even if there is a rainbow.

Paul Levine

#21. I don't have to worry No matter what they do to it, it works.

Virgil Thomson

#22. In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence you learn poise.

Virgil Thomson

#23. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road.

Christopher McCandless

#24. I grew up around some people whose parents toured a lot: tough on the marriage, tough on the kids.

John Darnielle

#25. I have likened writing a novel to going on a journey, with some notion of the destination I will arrive at, but not the whole picture - which emerges gradually as a series of revelations, as the journey goes along.

Rose Tremain

#26. I listened to the pure crystalline notes of one of Mozart's concertos dropping at my feet like leaves from the trees.

Virgil Thomson

#27. In the early eighteenth century, India owned 25% of the world's wealth.

Firas Alkhateeb

#28. In conversation marketing, you're providing a service, a continuing dialogue whose course through the Web is unknown. The more value it adds to the ecosystem, the more it will be shared, amplified and celebrated.

John Battelle

#29. I seem to write an opera about every 20 years; if you live long enough you can write four operas. I finished my third in 1970.

Virgil Thomson

#30. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

Barack Obama

#31. Verbal communication about music is impossible except among musicians.

Virgil Thomson

#32. I said to my friends that if I was going to starve, I might as well starve where the food is good.

Virgil Thomson

#33. My mum fought for feminism in her day so instilled in me the importance of equality. She taught me so much about women.

Chris Evans

#34. Leaning forward in the chair, Harley squeezed out a controlled fart, so no one could hear it. This damn reception area was like a echo chamber. If he weren't careful, it could reverberate around the hall like a shotgun blast.

Alan Kinross