Nadia Boulanger Quotes

I mean, what is music anyway? It's a form of communication - at least for me it is. And that's why I play the kind of music that I think - that I hope - can communicate with people.

Music is the soul of language.

Music bears a great responsibility because it is so influential. Everybody listens to music. It is a very influential tool. To me, it is very important to the world... music is... to being... to life.

Music is a simulation of something, but language is the greatest thing we possess.

But maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language in the most extravagant sense.

What love is to man, music is to the arts and to mankind. Music is love itself - it is the purest, most ethereal language of passion, showing in a thousand ways all possible changes of color and feeling; and though true in only a single instance, it yet can be understood by thousands of men - who all feel differently.

I'm a big fan of lyrics - lyrics are the thing that move me in certain ways.

I think that's what poets try to do: They try to sidestep neurology and go straight to meaning.

Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.

It is music that, being the universal language, has no need to learn any particular language of the world.

Music is meant to be a beautiful thing.

You know, I think music is very interactive. It's a - it's a language.

Music and language are a vital element. We, as actors and directors, offer it to people who want to experience it. Sometimes the actual meaning is less important than the words themselves.

Music has the power to bring people together like no other art form.

Music is the universal language of mankind.

What has always attracted me in life is poetry. Any genre can have poetry. For me, poetry contains truth.

But only art and music have the power to bring peace.

I think that's the great thing about music: It can communicate emotionally. And you don't have to necessarily get all of the words. I mean you have to know what is being said, but didn't you find even if you didn't get all of the words, you certainly get the emotion?

Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable.

When we separate music from life we get art.

But however measurable, there is much more life in music than mathematics or logic ever dreamed of.

I sing about life.

People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words.

What love is to man, music is to the arts and to mankind.

Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language.