Quotes About Expression

there's something wrong with any art that makes a woman all bust

In her face was the tense expression of an organism surviving in an alien element.

The way she said "dinner" and the way she said "champagne" gave meat and liquid their exact difference, as if by having surmounted two mediums, earth and air, her talent, running forward, achieved all others.

I talk too much because I have been made so miserable by what you are keeping hushed.

Art destroys silence.

The majority of my symphonies are tombstones

A fresh approach to a work of music (...) usually comes to those who have a fresh approach to aspects of life, to life in general.

I had to write a requiem for all those who died, who had suffered. (...) But how could I do it? I was constantly under suspicion then, and critics counted what percentage of my symphonies was in a major key and what percentage in a minor key. That oppressed me, it deprived me of the will to compose.

The Seventh Symphony had been planned before the war and consequently, it simply cannot be seen as a reaction to Hitler's attack. The 'invasion theme' has nothing to do with the attack. I was thinking of other enemies of humanity when I composed the team.

Of course they understood, they understood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fifth [Symphony] was about.

I do write quickly, that's true, but I think about my music for a comparatively long time, and until it's complete in my head I don't begin setting it down.

The Seventh and Eighth symphonies are my requiem.

This quality of Jewish folk music [- it can appear to be happy when it's tragic-] is close to my idea of what music should be. The should always be two layers in music.

I don't renounce my interest in gypsy songs. I don't see anything shameful in it, as opposed to, say, Prokofiev, who pretended to be enraged when he heard such music. He probably had a better musical education than I did. But at least I'm not a snob.

Glazunov was the first to convince me that a composer must make the performers submit to his will, and not the other way around (...) The composer must orchestrate in the way he conceived his work, and not simplify his orchestration to please the performers.

I don't see anything shameful in [gypsy songs] as opposed to, say, Prokofiev, who pretended to be enraged when he heard such music. He probably had a better musical education than I di. But at least I'm not a snob.

Stvari, i sve oko nas, imaju ono lice koje im mi dajemo.

A mi dobro pišemo samo ono što nismo mogli da ne napišemo.

A mi dobo pišemo samo ono što nismo mogli da ne napišemo.

public display and operatic suffering—an in-your-face owning of one's vulnerability and fucked-upness to the point of embarrassing and offending tight-asses is a powerful feminist strategy. Writing is tough work, I don't see how anyone can really write from a position of weakness. Sometimes I may start out in that position, but the act of commandeering words flips me into a position of power.

I suppose that words equal sex, or at least enough words, six and a half hours' worth.

Don't have much else to say, my brain is about having brain scum all over you, much as I did, because it kept acting up.

I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.

I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.