Leonard Bernstein quotes - page 2

Leonard Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, and pianist, renowned for his influential contributions to classical and popular music. His work with the New York Philharmonic and compositions like "West Side Story" left a lasting mark on the music world. He inspired generations of musicians and audiences with his passion and charisma. Here are 46 of his quotes:

Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.

Leonard Bernstein

To be a success as a Broadway composer, you must be Jewish or gay. I'm both.

Leonard Bernstein

I believe that man's noblest endowment is his capacity to change.

Leonard Bernstein

Success is all very well as long as you don't inhale.

Leonard Bernstein

The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.

Leonard Bernstein

The gift of imagination is by no means an exclusive property of the artist; it is a gift we all share; to some degree or other all of us, all of you, are endowed with the powers of fantasy.

Leonard Bernstein

Conducting is like making love to a hundred people at the same time.

Leonard Bernstein

When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.

Leonard Bernstein

Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's - the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering - a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages.

Leonard Bernstein

Any asshole can write a tone-row. It takes a composer to write a tune.

Leonard Bernstein

It would be nice to hear someone accidentally whistle something of mine, somewhere, just once.

Leonard Bernstein

I have two answers to everything and one answer to nothing.

Leonard Bernstein

The 20th century has been a badly written drama, from the beginning.

Leonard Bernstein

If you're a good composer, you steal good steals.

Leonard Bernstein

I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees.

Leonard Bernstein

When the study of the arts leads to the adoration of the formula (heaven forbid), we shall be lost.

Leonard Bernstein

Wine snobbery, of course, is part showmanship, part sophistication, part knowledge, and part bluff.

Leonard Bernstein

Even experimental composers, revolutionary composers, self-styled radicals are, in writing revolutionary music, recognizing the music that preceded them precisely by trying to avoid it.

Leonard Bernstein