Musical Quotes

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful one-hundred percent!”
― Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches the Egg

“And remember, the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God.”
― Herbert Kretzmer

“If Music is a Place -- then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple.”
― Vera Nazarian

“Music doesn't get in. Music is already in. Music simply uncovers what is there, makes you feel emotions that you didn't necessarily know you had inside you, and runs around waking them all up. A rebirth of sorts.”
― Matt Haig, How to Stop Time

“VIVA LA VIE BOHEME!”
― Jonathan Larson, Rent

“And must I now begin to doubt - who never doubted all these years? My heart is stone, and still it trembles. The world I have known is lost in the shadows. Is he from heaven or from hell? And does he know, that granting me my life today, this man has killed me, even so.
- Javert”
― Victor Hugo, Los Miserables I

“Too many years fighting back tears. Why can't the past just die? Wishing you were somehow here again, knowing we must say goodbye. Try to forgive, teach me to live, give me the strength to try! No more memories, no more silent tears, no more gazing across the wasted years. Help me say goodbye.”
― Charles Hart, The Phantom of the Opera: Piano/Vocal

“The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain...Music expresses only the quintessence of life and of its events, never these themselves.”
― Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

“No, you're wrong. I'm a hundred percent callow and deeply shallow.”
― Stephen Schwartz, Wicked: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical

“Everyone says I'm like the girl next door...Y'all must have really weird neighbors”
― Kelly Clarkson

“The music department is going to do a musical next year," he tells me, rolling his eyes like I would.
Justine is running toward me, and I can tell by the look on her face that she's found out about the musical, too.
I sigh, shaking my head. "I have to give Justine a lesson in holding back," I tell him. "She's just way too enthusiastic".
She grabs my arms in excitement. "We're doing Les Mis."
I scream hysterically, clutching her as we jump up and down.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Honest to God, this is the absolute best kind of moment. The auditorium lights are off except for ones over the stage, and we're all bright eyed and giggle-drunk. I fall a little bit in love with everyone.”
― Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

“There is a curious paradox that no one can explain. Who understands the secret of the reaping of the grain? Who understands why Spring is born out of Winter’s laboring pain, or why we must all die a bit before we grow again? I do not know the answer; I merely know it’s true. I hurt them for that reason, and myself a little bit too.”
― Tom Jones

“Be music always. Keep changing the keys, tones, pitch, and volume of each of the songs you create along your life's journey and play on.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.”
― Igor Stravinsky

“The scene is very Sopranos meets Rent.”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Louder than words

Why do we play with fire?
Why do we run our finger through the flame?
Why do we leave our hand on the stove
Although we know we're in for some pain?
Oh, why do we refuse to hang a light
When the streets are dangerous?
Why does it take an accident
Before the truth gets through to us?
Cages or wings
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds
Fear or love, baby?
Don't say the answer
Actions speak louder than words
Why should we try to be our best
When we can just get by and still gain?
Why do we nod our heads
Although we know
The boss is wrong as rain?
Why should we blaze a trail
When the well worn path
Seems safe and so inviting?
How as we travel, can we
See the dismay
And keep from fighting?
Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds
Fear or love, baby?
Don't say the answer
Actions speak louder than words
What does it take
To wake up a generation?
How can you make someone
Take off and fly?
If we don't wake up
And shake up the nation
We'll eat the dust of the world
Wondering why, why
Why do we stay with lovers
Who we know, down deep
Just aren't right?
Why would we rather
Put ourselves through Hell
Than sleep alone at night?
Why do we follow leaders who never lead?
Why does it take catastrophe to start a revolution?
If we're so free, tell me why?
Someone tell me why
So many people bleed?
Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds
Fear or love, baby?
Don't say the answer
Actions speak louder than
Louder than, louder than
Louder than, louder than
Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds
Fear or love baby?
Don't say the answer
Actions speak louder
Louder than, louder than, ooh
They speak louder
Louder than, louder than, ooh
Actions speak louder than”
― Jonathan Larson, tick, tick ... BOOM!

“Engel nennens Freude,
Teufel nennens Pein,
Menschen meinen,
Es muss Liebe sein.”
― Michael Kunze

“If I'm not wearing makeup or something androgynous, they see me as a boy. If I do dress more feminine or androgynous, they see a boy but a boy wearing eyeshadow or nail polish. It's easier for people to see what's on the outside than what's on the inside....You know how most people hear a song and only remember the thumping piano melody? I'm more than just that one instrument or one key. I exist in between notes, with backing vocals and lush harmonies.”
― Steven Salvatore, Can't Take That Away

“♫♫ “I have always believed in you. I have seen you grow. And you young lady are a star!” ♫♫ Mike starts singing with a reassuring tone.

Sasha stops him and speaks gently. “No. Not me!”

He continues his song as the music trails behind him. ♫♫ “If there’s anyone I know, who has the charm, who has the glow …it’s you!” ♫♫”
― Sunshine Rodgers, The Characters Within

“The cat hair floated in the air like a sound vibration, and I plucked it like a guitar string. Sometimes I can be so musical I’m like a living love song.”
― Jarod Kintz, 94,000 Wasps in a Trench Coat

“There's just this part of me that has to wallow, the part that cues up Les Miserables when I'm sad. I can't help it.”
― Becky Albertalli, Adam Silvera

“Andrew sings with his energetic and powerful voice, grabbing Sasha's hand and twirling her around. ♬♫ "There is something Unique. Something True. A Rare Beauty within you. I dare you to show it!" ♬♫”
― Sunshine Rodgers, The Characters Within

“A musician is conceived with imagination.
Music life.”
― theamitkumarswords

“Let the moment go. Don’t forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you had an ‘and’ when you’re back to ‘or’ makes the ‘or’ mean more than it did before. Now I understand—and it’s time to leave the woods.”
― Stephen Sondheim

“Hodge admired Wilder’s performance but didn't want to reproduce it - for practical as well as artistic reasons. ‘I'm working in a different medium,’ he says. ‘I really admire Gene Wilder's version, but his energy - that druggy, transcendental, gently enigmatic thing - is different from what I require to sing huge songs and fill a theatre full of children. There's a different engine powering a big West End musical.”
― Lucy Mangan, Inside Charlie's Chocolate Factory: The Complete Story of Willy Wonka, the Golden Ticket, and Roald Dahl's Most Famous Creation.

“You say tomato, I say kumato. You say campari, I say a berry!”
― James Hauenstein

“You might have saved the Dance," I say loftily, "but I saved this school from Cats."

"Not all heroes wear capes," Ryan says, pushing open the classroom door. "You know, I kind of like Cats."

"You like watching aviation disaster documentaries too," I say blandly, hiking up my backpack on one shoulder.”
― Amanda DeWitt, Wren Martin Ruins It All

“One of the most potent combinations is comedy and horror. The pairing descends from the tradition of gallows humor, also known as sick humor or dark comedy. Typical example—a man awaits the guillotine and tells the executioner, "Just a trim, please. Dark comedy laughs at that which is not funny: death, disease, dismemberment, suicide, homicide, cannibal apocalypse. Ashman, so dedicated to the form of the musical, also "liked splatter movies," according to Nancy Parent. After Little Shop opened, he worked with her husband, Michael Serrian, on another potential Off-Broadway show, entitled Splatter! Ashman then realized that his new project was too close to Little Shop. Nevertheless, there is a structural similarity between musicals and the slasher film: both work toward a climax every five or ten minutes, either a musical number or the next decapitation.”
― Adam Abraham, Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors

“Poetry is an organic urge to translate a mental and musical play into human language.”
― Elizabeth Dennings, By the River Mandovi