All you have to do is close your eyes and wait for the symbols. Igor Stravinsky More Quotes by Igor Stravinsky More Quotes From Igor Stravinsky Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. Igor Stravinsky possibilitysilencefoolish I never understood the need for a "live" audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one. Igor Stravinsky music-iswould-beneeds An audience is an abstraction; it has no taste. It must depend on the only person who has (pardon, should have), the conductor. Igor Stravinsky pardontasteshould-have Hurry? I have no time to hurry. Igor Stravinsky haste The one true comment on a piece of music is another piece of music. Igor Stravinsky commentpiecesmusic-is The past slips from our grasp. It leaves us only scattered things. The bond that united them eludes us. Our imagination usually fills in the void by making use of preconceived theories...Archaeology, then, does not supply us with certitudes, but rather with vague hypotheses. And in the shade of these hypotheses some artists are content to dream, considering them less as scientific facts than as sources of inspiration. Igor Stravinsky artistinspirationdream Silence, which will save from shame, will also deprive me of fame. Igor Stravinsky shamesilencefame When I discovered that I had been made custodian of this gift, in my earliest childhood, I pledged myself to God to be worthy of it, but I have received uncovenanted mercies all my life. The custodian has too often kept faith on his all-too-worldly terms. Igor Stravinsky custodianschildhoodmercy It is my conviction that the public always shows itself more honest in its spontaneity than do those who officially set themselves up as judges of works of art. Igor Stravinsky criticismjudgingart Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also. Igor Stravinsky ducksenough I am an inventor of music. Igor Stravinsky inventor I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya. Igor Stravinsky rodentscriticismdream I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God. Igor Stravinsky borntalentshould-have The more controlled, limited and tormented art is, the freer it is. Igor Stravinsky art-iscontrolledart I wonder if memory is true, and I know that it cannot be, but that one lives by memory nevertheless and not by truth. Igor Stravinsky live-bymemories To continue in one path is to go backward. Igor Stravinsky path Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it. Igor Stravinsky inventionconfusedimagination Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. Igor Stravinsky classiccareersromantic Music is given to us specifically to make order of things, to move from an anarchic, individualistic state to a regulated, perfectly concious one, which alone insures vitality and durability. Igor Stravinsky musicordermoving An artist is like a pig snouting truffles. Igor Stravinsky artistpigsart
