Commentary Quote by Dmitri Shostakovich

I much prefer making music to talking about it. There's something visceral about instruments and voices that transcends words.

— Mark Heard

For me, writing music is a way of processing the world. It's not a concrete thing, as in, "This piece is about giraffes." It's…

— Missy Mazzoli

In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

— Dmitri Shostakovich

I don't much listen to music as I study it: who's doing what, who wrote it.

— Sixto Rodriguez

Music is an important part of my writing process.

— Peter James

Every now and then, as a composer and producer, it's important to write music for yourself.

— Ludwig Goransson

My entire life has really revolved around music that was written about the time that I was born, 1908, to just before the First…

— Elliott Carter

I don't write music for critics or hipsters. I write for me.

— John Rzeznik

Music’s the soundtrack of my life and has been since I was a teenager. There’s always music. If I’m not playing it, I’m listening…

— Charles de Lint

What I've learned from my gurus is that when you hear music, you hear a person, or you hear people, and you hear everything…

— Vijay Iyer

Music is a lens through which to see who we are. Every phrase of every piece of music is trying to tell a story.

— Charles Hazlewood

Some writers are curiously unmusical. I don't get it. I don't get them. For me, music is essential. I always have music on when…

— Barry Hannah