composition is notation of distortion of what composers think they've heard before. Masterpieces are marvelous misquotations. — Ned Rorem Copy Share Image
Greatness is not the effect of which inspiration is the cause. We are all inspired, but we are all not great. — Ned Rorem Copy Share Image
Intelligence is silence, truth is being invisible. But what a racket I make in declaring this. — Ned Rorem Copy Share Image
If a composer could state in words what being a composer means, he would no longer need to be a composer. — Ned Rorem Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. — Ned Rorem Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
If music could be translated into human speech, it would no longer need to exist. — Ned Rorem Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“We endow our poor lovers with godly traits, and then destroy them for being mortal. ” — Ned Rorem Copy Share Image
All men are forced into one of two categories: those with eleven fingers and those without. — Ned Rorem Copy Share Image
Art's the biggest vanity: the assumption that one's view of peace or fright or beauty is permanently communicable. — Ned Rorem Copy Share Image
