Jane Hirshfield Quotes

I often begin a thought with spirit and finish it with nonsense. The chain of my argument often escapes me, and when lost can seldom be retrieved. These faults are so overpowering that I should sink into perpetual silence were it not that sometimes in ardor of debate, when my feelings are wound up to a high tone, elocution pours itself along with unusual rapidity, and I have passages which would not shame a good speaker; this is the only thing that makes me tolerable to others or to myself.

My music relies solely on the feeling. Just the feeling.

I am a slave to the rhythm. I am a palette. I just go with the moment. You've got to do it that way because if you're thinking, you're dead. Performing is not about thinking; it's about feeling.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

Man is primarily governed by passion and instinct.

Reason guides but a small part of man, and the rest obeys feeling, true or false, and passion, good or bad.

Logic is no answer to passion.

Sometimes I put my heart in front of my technique.

Prudence says one thing, desire says another, and I'd rather go with desire any time.

Passion should always trump common sense.

Art does not come from thinking but from responding.

I don't want to think I want to feel!

I am very mistrustful of people who are constantly over intellectualising things. It kills passion. You have to allow yourself to lose control from time to time.

It is the heart which inspires eloquence.

I have an instinct for music, or a feeling about it, and I'll have my feelings guide my hands.

If you can't do it with feeling - don't.

You might question a winkle - a feeling that came to you right out of the blue - but you didn’t question knowing.

I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em.

Don't use your brain to play it, let your feelings guide your fingers.

If you feel something, you should do it.

Do your homework and know your facts, but remember it's passion that persuades.

That is the way we are made: we don't reason, where we feel; we just feel.

Speak from the balls, not from the diaphram.