Artist Quotes by Ned Rorem

Greatness is not the effect of which inspiration is the cause. We are all inspired, but we are all not great.

— Ned Rorem

Intelligence is silence, truth is being invisible. But what a racket I make in declaring this.

— Ned Rorem

If a composer could state in words what being a composer means, he would no longer need to be a composer.

— Ned Rorem

Perfection is no more a requisite to art than to heroes. Frigidaires are perfect. Beauty limps. My frigidaire has had to be replaced.

— Ned Rorem

Anyone can be gay - it's no accomplishment - but only I can be me.

— Ned Rorem

Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.

— Ned Rorem

The Great don't innovate, they fertilize seeds planted by lackeys, they leave to others the inhaling of the flowers whose roots they've manured. A…

— Ned Rorem

If music could be translated into human speech, it would no longer need to exist.

— Ned Rorem

As a lifelong pacifist, Quaker, and a gay man, I despair that gays and lesbians are expending energy trying to get into the military…

— Ned Rorem

“We endow our poor lovers with godly traits, and then destroy them for being mortal. ”

— Ned Rorem

All men are forced into one of two categories: those with eleven fingers and those without.

— Ned Rorem

Art's the biggest vanity: the assumption that one's view of peace or fright or beauty is permanently communicable.

— Ned Rorem

In music the present is extended.

— Ned Rorem

“Sooner or later you’ve heard all your best friends have to say. Then comes the tolerance of real love. The same holds true for…

— Ned Rorem

To start writing about your life is, from one standpoint, to stop living it. You must avoid adventures today so as to make time…

— Ned Rorem