“If a composer has a nice wife and some nice children, how can he let the children starve on his dissonances?” IfsLoveChildrenNiceWifeComposerDissonanceSome Nice Author:Charles Ives
“Expression, to a great extent, is a matter of terms, and terms are anyone's. The meaning of 'God' may have a billion interpretations if there be that many souls in the world” IfsWorldMaySoulMatterTermExpressionBillionsInterpretation Book:Essays Before a Sonata Source: Essays Before a Sonata
“An apparent confusion, if lived with long enough, may become orderly . . . A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannot be explained at noon. Yet it is part of the day's unity” IfsMayLongEnoughMomentsSeemsConsciousnessUnityConfusionNoonOrderlyDaybreak Book:Piano sonata no. 2: Source: Piano sonata no. 2:
“One thing I am certain of is that, if I have done anything good in music, it was, first, because of my father, and second, because of my wife” IfsFirstsDoneCertainFatherWifeOne ThingMy Wife Author:Charles Ives
“If idioms are more to be born than to be selected, then the things of life and human nature that a man has grown up with--(not that one man's experience is better than another's, but that it is 'his.')--may give him something better in his substance and manner than an over-long period of superimposed idiomatic education which quite likely doesn't fit his constitution. My father used to say, 'If a poet knows more about a horse than he does about heaven, he might better stick to the horse, and some day the horse may carry him into heaven'” IfsKnowsMenGivingHumansMayLongDoeMightUsedFatherHeavenBornHuman NaturePoetPeriodsFitConstitutionHorseSticksSubstanceOne ManSomething BetterSelectedIdiom Author:Charles Ives
“A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens... if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly... to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it?” IfsFeelsHumansHappensSongMusicRightsCitizensMountainOrdinaryFlyingScalesPianoOrdinary Citizens Author:Charles Ives
“If a poet knows more about a horse than he does about heaven, he might better stick to the horse, and some day the horse may carry him into heaven.” IfsKnowsMayDoeMightPoetryHeavenPoetHorseSticks Author:Charles Ives
