#classic

I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland. And when we moved to America, it was just the typical thing except I was really good at it; so was my brother. ↗

— Eddie Van Halen

#america #brother #classical #except #good

Many, many years ago, I was one of the few conductors who talked to the audience and now a lot of classical conductors have figured it out... otherwise, you just get the back of someone's head playing music you could hear on a CD. It's not enough anymore. ↗

— Marvin Hamlisch

#anymore #audience #back #cd #classical

His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork. ↗

— Mae West

#insult

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I'll waste no time reading it. ↗

— Moses Hadas

#books #classic-insult #irony #literary-criticism #time

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination. ↗

— Andrew Lang

#simile #insult

Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new-create another heir As great in admiration as herself. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#drama #english-literature #drama

Ut haec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum vim habere is nihil omnino sensurus esse videatur." If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. ↗

— Horace

#classics #horace #latin #classics

And so it goes... ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#classics

When you reread a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before. ↗

— Clifton Fadiman

#classics

No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#classics