Marsha Norman Quotes

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

There's a lot of different forms of communication, but music is absolutely the purest one.

There's something in music which is obviously beyond language itself. It's communication in its purest form.

The music takes over the words and makes them speak to me in another language.

Music is all about transporting people, speaking a language which languages fail to express.

Language is much closer to film than painting is.

The final test of a painting, theirs, mine, any other, is: does the painter's emotions come across?

Painting is a language of its own. You cannot interpret one form of expression with another form of expression.

Art class was my thing, but not any other class.

Music is the way I talk to people.

I'm not that great of a speaker. I don't like watching my own interviews. I think I suck at talking, but one thing I can do is move my pen, and if that's how I gotta speak to my daughter, then let me do that.

Art after all is but an extension of language to the expression of sensations too subtle for words.

When you play music, you don't need a language. Music is a language.

I gave up language for a while, and I started painting.And then I only listened to Miles Davis and other instrumental music to see how it felt to be without words.

Making music and art is about expressing something that's universally human, maybe even beyond human, at best.

Music bypasses the conceptual mind. Music does not give you food for thought.

I can't verbalize the internal meaning of pictures whatsoever. Some of my friends can at very mystical levels, but I prefer to say that, if I feel something strongly, I would make a photograph, that would be the equivalent of what I saw and felt.

Words are coin. Words alienate. Language is no medium for desire. Desire is rapture, not exchange.

Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.

He best can paint them who shall feel them most.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions. Perhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom.

We can't profess love without talking through hand puppets.

I think at times the very strong feelings I have about my country coincide with my musical ability, and I'm able to actually turn it into music, a song or even hopefully a memorable song, sometimes. You may find it surprising, but I'm a very intense, proud American. I love being an American.

I am such a bloody talented guy. I might go into painting or something like that.