Henry Mancini Quotes

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.

With Whitney she has such a unique sound and powerful instrument that she made those songs her own. She might as well have written them because she brought such a power and passion to them that were very unique. She has a great gift.

Dancers are a work of art - they are the canvas on which their work is painted.

You can have the greatest player in terms of mastering an instrument and you could be yawning your head off when you hear them. So, it's not what you do, but the way you're doing it and in the end that's all that we have.

I'm not interested in how well someone can sing. It's what you're singing that interests me.

It's not what you play, it's how you play it.

Dance has always been my number one. I started when I was seven years old and I've had the opportunity to work with some really amazing artists.

Kleiber was the perfect dancer - so perfect that you could see the process. After all, dance is a process; it's a series of snapshots. Kleiber knew how to connect people to the flow, so he could stop managing people.

Music is not simply an orchestration of something, but it's also not something as trivial as honesty.

The ballet embodies the notes of music. And sometimes you almost feel like you can see the notes dance up there on the stage.

The first condition for making music is not to make a noise.

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

I love working with Alicia Keys, because it's not just the ability to do the dance to me; I think it's the ability to interpret it that excites me the most.

Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.

What I have to do as a musician is do everything that is not on the music.

Stand-up comedians say that anyone in the audience can be funny, but people paid to see us because we're just a little bit funnier. In the same way, I think anybody can play music - in fact, I think everyone has music in them, but some of us can do it a little better.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

You may feel that Peter Martins' 'Beauty' is too compressed and inexpressive, but it's loyal to the text.

If you listen to the way I speak, I have a lot of rhythm, use a lot of accents. When I'm playing my instrument, that concept comes through very clearly.

Talent will only take you so far, and it is your ability to feel the music and explore a movement that will bring you the greatest pleasure in dance.

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

My paintings and comedy have a lot in common. They are both improvisations based on observation.

In my opinion, it's all about the song and the performance, not the gender.

Balanchine was just able to strike the balance between literal narrative and abstract dance.