Music Quotes

Here is a list of top music quotes in the same place for you to read and enjoy. Whether you’re looking for inspiration regarding music or quotes from famous artists regarding music, this list has you covered! Music has long been an art form that manages to touch us emotionally in a deep way, to help us express our emotions and to express oneself in a holistic way. Most of these quotes are from famous composers, singers and artists. Feel free to vote up your own favourite music quote that you like the most, to give it a better chance to rank higher on this list. We recommend starting to browse the quotes from the top of the list, as the list is ranked by community votes with the most popular music quotes on the top of the list.

1
Albert Einstein

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” ― Albert Einstein
2
Friedrich Nietzsche

“Without music, life would be a mistake.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
3
Bob Marley

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” ― Bob Marley
4
Victor Hugo

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent” ― Victor hugo
5
Friedrich Nietzsche

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
6
William Shakespeare

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.” ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet
7
Paul McCartney

“And, in the end
The love you take
is equal to the love you make.” ― Paul McCartney, The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics
8
William Shakespeare

“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.” ― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
9
Taylor Swift

“People haven’t always been there for me but music always has.” ― Taylor Swift
10
Bob Marley

“None but ourselves can free our minds.” ― Bob Marley
11
Maya Angelou

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” ― Maya Angelou
12
John Green

“Some people have lives; some people have music.” ― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
13
Frank Zappa

“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” ― Frank Zappa
14
Langston Hughes

“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.” ― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems
15
Kurt Vonnegut

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC” ― kurt vonnegut
16
Ludwig van Beethoven

“Music is … A higher revelation than all Wisdom & Philosophy” ― Ludwig van Beethoven
17
Maya Angelou

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. ” ― Maya Angelou
18
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
19
Bob Dylan

“Play it fuckin’ loud!” ― Bob Dylan
20
Modest Mouse

“Music is to the soul what words are to the mind.” ― Modest Mouse, Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News
21
Lady Gaga

“I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped I’d fail. I said to him, ‘Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the fucking deli without hearing or seeing me.” ― Lady Gaga
22
Bob Marley

“I don’t stand for black man’s side, I don’t stand for white man’s side, I stand for God’s side.” ― Bob Marley
23
Taylor Swift

“Everybody has that point in their life where you hit a crossroads and you’ve had a bunch of bad days and there’s different ways you can deal with it and the way I dealt with it was I just turned completely to music.” ― Taylor Swift
24
Edward Bulwer Lytton

“Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.” ― Edward Bulwer Lytton
25
Suzanne Collins

“Because when he sings…even the birds stop to listen.” ― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
26
Keith Richards

“If you’re going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet.” ― Keith Richards, Keith Richards: In His Own Words
27
Jonathan Safran Foer

“Songs are as sad as the listener.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
28
Bob Dylan

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.” ― Bob Dylan
29
Johnny Depp

“Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t.” ― Johnny Depp
30
Leo Tolstoy

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Family Happiness
31
Maggie Stiefvater

“You’re like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again.” ― Maggie Stiefvater, Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception
32
Mary Gaitskill

“My ambition was to live like music.” ― Mary Gaitskill
33
Bob Dylan

“I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.” ― Bob Dylan
34
Carson McCullers

“Next to music, beer was best.” ― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
35
Jerry Seinfeld

“Somebody just gave me a shower radio. Thanks a lot. Do you really want music in the shower? I guess there’s no better place to dance than a slick surface next to a glass door.” ― Jerry Seinfeld
36
Hans Christian Andersen

“Where words fail, music speaks.” ― Hans Christian Andersen
37
Gerard Way

“If you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, you can find out first hand what it’s like to be me.” ― Gerard Way
38
Lester Bangs

“The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.” ― Lester Bangs
39
Aaron Copland

“To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.” ― Aaron Copland
40
Tori Amos

“Girls you’ve gotta know when it’s time to turn the page.” ― Tori Amos, Tori Amos: From the Choirgirl Hotel
41
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Music is the universal language of mankind.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
42
Tom Waits

“My kids are starting to notice I’m a little different from the other dads. “Why don’t you have a straight job like everyone else?” they asked me the other day.

I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, “Look at me…I’m tall, and I’m straight, and I’m handsome. Look at you…you’re all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you.” And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, “Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest.” So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.” ― Tom Waits
43
Edith Sitwell

“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.” ― Edith Sitwell
44
C. JoyBell C.

“You’ve got this life and while you’ve got it, you’d better kiss like you only have one moment, try to hold someone’s hand like you will never get another chance to, look into people’s eyes like they’re the last you’ll ever see, watch someone sleeping like there’s no time left, jump if you feel like jumping, run if you feel like running, play music in your head when there is none, and eat cake like it’s the only one left in the world!” ― C. JoyBell C.
45
Osho

“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” ― Osho
46
Leonard Bernstein

“Music . . . can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” ― Leonard Bernstein
47
Tom Waits

“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.” ― Tom Waits
48
Leopold Stokowski

“A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” ― Leopold Stokowski
49
Emma Goldman

“If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution.” ― Emma Goldman
50
Nora Roberts

“Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.” ― Nora Roberts
51
Lady Gaga

“When you make music or write or create, it’s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you’re writing about at the time. ” ― Lady Gaga
52
Stephen Chbosky

“Asleep by the Smiths
Vapour Trail by Ride
Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel
A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum
Dear Prudence by the Beatles
Gypsy by Suzanne Vega
Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues
Daydream by Smashing Pumpkins
Dusk by Genesis (before Phil Collins was even in the band!)
MLK by U2
Blackbird by the Beatles
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac
Asleep by the Smiths (again!)

-Charlie’s mixtape” ― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
53
Sarah J. Maas

“I like music,” she said slowly, “because when I hear it, I . . . I lose myself within myself, if that makes any sense. I become empty and full all at once, and I can feel the whole earth roiling around me. When I play. I’m not . . . for once, I’m not destroying, I’m creating.” ― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass
54
Robert Browning

“Who hears music, feels his solitude
Peopled at once.” ― Robert Browning, The complete poetical works of Browning
55
Woody Allen

“I just can’t listen to any more Wagner, you know…I’m starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.” ― Woody Allen
56
Steve Maraboli

“Live your truth. Express your love. Share your enthusiasm. Take action towards your dreams. Walk your talk. Dance and sing to your music. Embrace your blessings. Make today worth remembering.” ― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
57
Paul McCartney

“I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird.” ― Paul McCartney
58
Rachel Cohn

“I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have a feeling that they can’t hide.” ― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
59
Lana Del Rey

“I was always an unusual girl.
My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean.” ― Lana Del Rey
60
John Lennon

“If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.” ― John Lennon
61
Frank Zappa

“Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is THE BEST.” ― Frank Zappa
62
Jess C Scott

“A fit, healthy body—that is the best fashion statement” ― Jess C Scott
63
Lana Del Rey

“Who are you?
Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies?
Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them?
I have. I am fucking crazy.
But I am free.” ― Lana Del Rey
64
John Lennon

“For those of you in the cheap seats I’d like ya to clap your hands to this one; the rest of you can just rattle your jewelry!” ― John Lennon
65
Frank Zappa

“Jazz isn’t dead. It just smells funny.” ― Frank Zappa
66
Mark Hoppus

“the past is only the future with the lights on.” ― Mark Hoppus, Blink 182
67
Hannah Harrington

“He took his pain and turned it into something beautiful. Into something that people connect to. And that’s what good music does. It speaks to you. It changes you.” ― Hannah Harrington, Saving June
68
Bob Dylan

“And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking.” ― Bob Dylan
69
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“The music is not in the notes,
but in the silence between.” ― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
70
John Barrowman

“I’ve always thought people would find a lot more pleasure in their routines if they burst into song at significant moments.” ― John Barrowman
71
Arthur O’Shaughnessy

“We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.” ― Arthur O’Shaughnessy, Poems of Arthur O’Shaughnessy
72
Alphonse de Lamartine

“Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends.” ― Alphonse de Lamartine
73
Gerard Way

“Would you destroy Something perfect in order to make it beautiful?” ― Gerard Way
74
Ellen DeGeneres

“Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you’ve never sung before, and you realize you’ve never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, ‘Life in the Fast Lane?’ That’s what they’re saying right there? You think, ‘why have I been singing ‘wipe in the vaseline?’ how many people have heard me sing ‘wipe in the vaseline?’ I am an idiot.” ― Ellen DeGeneres, My Point… And I Do Have One
75
Taylor Swift

“So don’t you worry your pretty little mind because people throw rocks at things that shine. [Ours]” ― Taylor Swift
76
Douglas Adams

“Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe.” ― Douglas Adams
77
Tupac Shakur

“I’m not saying I’m gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.” ― Tupac Shakur
78
Chuck Palahniuk

“The first step – especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money – the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.” ― Chuck Palahniuk
79
Emilie Autumn

“Perfume was first created to mask the stench of foul and offensive odors…
Spices and bold flavorings were created to mask the taste of putrid and rotting meat…
What then was music created for?
Was it to drown out the voices of others, or the voices within ourselves?
I think I know.” ― Emilie Autumn, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls
80
Oscar Wilde

“Music makes one feel so romantic – at least it always gets on one’s nerves – which is the same thing nowadays.” ― Oscar Wilde
81
Rob Sheffield

“When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.” ― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape
82
Sir James Barrie

“If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.” ― Sir James Barrie, Peter Pan
83
Paul McCartney

“Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, Tomorrow I’ll miss you.” ― Paul McCartney
84
Tom Waits

“There ain’t no devil, only God when he’s drunk.” ― Tom Waits
85
Taylor Swift

“The only one who’s got enough of me to break my heart.” ― Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift: Piano Play-Along Volume 95
86
Marilyn Manson

“Music is the strongest form of magic.” ― Marilyn Manson
87
Jess C Scott

“V-Day…if you need this one day in a year to show everyone else you truly care for “your loved one” I think it’s quite stupid. I hate this commercialism. It’s all artificial, and has nothing to do with real love.” ― Jess C Scott, EyeLeash: A Blog Novel
88
Frank Zappa

“Definition of rock journalism: People who can’t write, doing interviews with people who can’t think, in order to prepare articles for people who can’t read.” ― Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book
89
Lao Tzu

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.” ― Lao Tzu
90
Robert Fripp

“Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.” ― Robert Fripp
91
Nick Hornby

“What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?” ― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
92
Kahlil Gibran

“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.” ― Kahlil Gibran
93
Daniel Keyes

“Thank God for books and music and things I can think about.” ― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
94
Donald Miller

“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened.” ― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
95
Nick Hornby

“I love the relationship that anyone has with music … because there’s something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. … It’s the best part of us probably …” ― Nick Hornby, Songbook
96
Maria von Trapp

“Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.” ― Maria von Trapp
97
Emilie Autumn

“Studies show:
Intelligent girls are more depressed
Because they know
What the world is really like
Don’t think for a beat it makes it better
When you sit her down and tell her
Everything gonna be all right
She knows in society she either is
A devil or an angel with no in between
She speaks in the third person
So she can forget that she’s me” ― Emilie Autumn
98
Paul McCartney

“When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.
Let it be, let it be, …..
And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, …..” ― Paul McCartney
99
Jimi Hendrix

“Who are you to judge the life i live
i know i’m not perfect and i don’t live to be.
but before you start pointing fingers
make sure your hands are clean.” ― Jimi Hendrix
100
Jess C Scott

“My head’ll explode if I continue with this escapism.” ― Jess C Scott, EyeLeash: A Blog Novel

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