Leonard Bernstein Quotes

The sense of war, the extraordinary bravery of the Allied armies, the numbers, the losses, the real suffering that disappears in time and commemorative oratory, are not marked out in any red guidebook of the emotions, but they are present if you look.

When I see things that are inspiring, I must write a song about it. Some people make a t-shirt or slap something on a wall with paint, but I must make music and freestyle rap.

When Dick Avedon died, I was so upset that I just started painting.

Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.

And the blood of brave men was shed like unto the shedding of rain from a black cloud.

All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.

I'm inspired by artists and musicians. There are so many wonderful and talented people in the world. I love discovering new music, new writers, or new art.

My wife is a painter, musician, and fiber artist. We married in 1993, and as she worked, I found that my reading about art was helping me understand what she was doing, just as seeing her work gave me a language with which to speak of art.

What is war but your usual custom? Or what is sweeter for a brave man than to seek revenge with his own hand? It is right for nature to glut the soul with vengeance. Let us then attack the foe eagerly, for they are ever the bolder who make the attack.

The man's leg was broken and he had another bad wound. I could have taken his scalp easily, but Sabaqua, the old chief, begged me not to kill him. He wanted to take him to his wife alive, in place of her son whom the white brave had killed.

Beowulf is not a superhero. He has a talent, very much like Clint Eastwood in 'Unforgiven.' He's very good at staying calm in the right moment, but he does bad things. It's very much about having talent in a tight spot.

Without electricity, there can be no art.

The enemy of art is the enemy of nature; art is nothing but the highest sagacity and exertion of human nature; and what nature will he honour who honours not the human?

In the deepest hour of the night I confess to myself three things; I would die if I was forbidden to write, forbidden to love, or forbidden to fashion....love each other, and celebrate the art and lifestyle of music.

In countries like Afghanistan, the corruption is in your face. In Nigeria, I heard of judges making sex the bargaining chip rather than money. Now let's put that in the context of an honor-based society. Imagine that you're the brother of a woman who got raped by a judge to have her case heard in court. What do you want to do? You want to kill the judge. So here is an insurgent movement that hands you a gun. You have rage, and they give you an outlet for your rage.

I'm not the type to turn to drugs and alcohol, but I do have a profound devotion to art and music - and children.

I love art. I love music. It's more about the lifestyle you yourself have - that's the most inspiring thing. The way you share relationships with the people around you.

Time sped. And the poet through sorrow Became like his suffering kind. Again he toiled over his poems To lighten the grief of his mind.

He is a man of the Night's Watch, She thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. Arya Stark (page 514)

Nothing has a more sinister effect on art than the artist's desire to prove that he's good. The terrible temptation of idealism! You must achieve mastery over your idealism, over your virtue as well as over your vice, aesthetic mastery over everything that drives you to write in the first place - your outrage, your politics, your grief, your love!

You are the song of every bird, you are the poet's every word, every artist's picture, every writer's play.

Writing, acting, music, comedy. A deep love of literature and books. Thank God for all the artists who've helped me.

The opening line from a journal can be the beginning of a song.

The true poem is the poet's mind.