Yanni Quotes

I have tried to present my sensations in what is the most congenial and impressive form possible to me.

There's something in music that fascinates me - how it communicates emotion so immediately. That's something I wanted in my paintings.

Music expresses what cannot be put into words I like to think, and I think the band makes a good go at it.

Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.

I think that music, being an expression of the human heart, or of the human being itself, does express just what is happening - the whole of human experience at the particular time that it is being expressed.

The way I write things, I just write them with a clash between reality and fantasy mostly. You have to use fantasy to show different sides of reality; it's how it can bend.

Although the poet has as wide a choice of subjects as the painter, his creations fail to afford as much satisfaction to mankind as do paintings... if the poet serves the understanding by way of the ear, the painter does so by the eye, which is the nobler sense.

They said, 'You have a blue guitar, / You do not play things as they are.' / The man replied, 'Things as they are / Are changed upon the blue guitar.'

It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely, that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial. Or each on specific occasions, or both all the time.

For a poet, making poems is a way of viewing the world, being in the world, breathing.

Music gets us in touch with our emotions in a way that's more intimate than any other art form.

Obviously, the emotions I want to convey through music are streamed through the way I interpret life.

My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That's how I see my voice.

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.

I have intentions as a writer, but people - when they're listening to a track - will take from it what they interpret.

I'm very expressive. Expressing my emotions and experiences through music has always been an important outlet for me. Many of my songs are influenced by personal events and experiences that I have gone through.

The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.

There are two kinds of poets: those who feel and those who express themselves. The former are happier.

What is artistically good is whatever articulates and presents feeling to our understanding.

The live show allows me to transcend myself, because it's not about me anymore. The writing process is very much about me but then the live show is not. They feel really different.

If I play you a piece of music, that's when you can truly look inside me.

Art is not truth; art is the lie which makes us see the truth.

Typography is to literature as musical performance is to composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness.

Art is contemplation of the world in a state of grace and imaginatively reflecting that subjective understanding.

My paintings are not meant to be tasted.