We can neither put back the clock nor slow down our forward speed, and as we are already flying pilotless, on instrument controls, it is even too late to ask where we are going.
IGOR STRAVINSKYIt is my conviction that the public always shows itself more honest in its spontaneity than do those who officially set themselves up as judges of works of art.
More Igor Stravinsky Quotes
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What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Doomed to total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference, he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, of whose mines he had a perfect knowledge.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Silence, which will save from shame, will also deprive me of fame.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Old age is a time of humiliations, the most disagreeable of which, for me, is that I cannot work long at sustained high pressure with no leaks in concentration.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Nothing is likely about masterpieces, least of all whether there will be any.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
I am an inventor of music.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
It’s one of nature’s way that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to chance.
IGOR STRAVINSKY -
I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.
IGOR STRAVINSKY