Musically Inclined Quotes

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I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. [...] Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person, the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We could prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
If for a moment you are inclined to regard these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic dumps, climb to the top of one of them, and run down without any haggling, puttering hesitation, boldly jumping from boulder to boulder with even speed. You will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly discover the music and poetry of these magnificent rock piles -- a fine lesson; and all Nature's wildness tells the same story -- the shocks and outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods, the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every sort -- each and all are the orderly beauty-making love-beats of Nature's heart.
John Muir
Looking back at those early days in the band house, we can all see how important they were in helping us bond as a band. It could have gone so wrong. Danny and I had picked Harry and Dougie after, literally, two days of knowing them. We could have all hated each other. We could have found that we had nothing in common, or that we resented the time we spent with each other. In fact, we had such a lot of fun. We weren’t yet famous or successful, but already we were having the time of our lives. Even when we hit the big time, we didn’t want to go out to clubs or celebrity haunts. Not our scene. For us, the best thing about being in a band was being in a band, doing band stuff - not all the trappings that went with it. We liked working on our music, and we liked hanging out together. All this meant we gelled more than most bands ever have the opportunity or inclination to do. Within a couple of months of moving into the band house, I had three new best friends. Their names were Danny, Harry and Dougie. No matter what the future held for us, our friendship was something we now know we could always rely on.
Tom Fletcher (McFly: Unsaid Things... Our Story)
Prokofiev and I never did become friends, probably because Prokofiev was not inclined towards friendly relations in general. He was a hard man and didn't seem interested in anything than himself and his music.
Dmitri Shostakovich (Testimony: The Memoirs)
In the break-up of a marriage the world inclines to take the side of the partner with most vitality, rather than the one apparently least to blame.
Anthony Powell (A Dance to the Music of Time: 1st Movement (A Dance to the Music of Time, #1-3))
I discovered that the predisposition for languages is as mysterious as the inclination of certain people for mathematics or music and has nothing to do with intelligence or knowledge. It is something separate, a gift that some possess and others don’t.
Mario Vargas Llosa (The Bad Girl)
Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ear lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently—possibly almost invariably—analytical and impersonal test will show that when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep.
Charles Ives
Quantum mechanics. What a repository, a dump, of human aspiration it was, the borderland where mathematical rigor defeated common sense, and reason and fantasy irrationally merged. Here the mystically inclined could find whatever they required and claim science as their proof. And for these ingenious men in their spare time, what ghostly and beautiful music it must be--spectral asymmetry, resonances, entanglement, quantum harmonic oscillators--beguiling ancient airs, the harmony of the spheres that might transmute a lead wall into gold and bring into being the engine that ran on virtually nothing, on virtual particles, that emitted no harm and would power the human enterprise as well as save it. Beard was stirred by the yearnings of these lonely men. And why should he think they were lonely? It was not, or not only, condescension that made him think them so. They did not know enough, but they knew too much to have anyone to talk to. What mate waiting down the pub or in the British Legion, what hard-pressed wife with job and kids and housework, was going to follow them down these warped funnels in the space-time continuum, into the wormhole, the shortcut to a single, final answer to the global problem of energy?
Ian McEwan (Solar)
Years later, in 1987, I wrote a violin concerto for Ben. I knew he loved the Mendelssohn violin concerto, so I wrote it in a way that he would have liked. In his actual lifetime I didn’t have the knowledge, skill, or inclination to compose such a work. I missed that chance by at least fifteen years. But when I could, I wrote it for him anyway.
Philip Glass (Words Without Music: A Memoir)
I break out laughing. I frown. I yell and scream. Sometimes, if one jokes and giggles, one causes war. So I hide how tickled I am. Tears well up in my eyes. My body is a large city. Much grieving in one sector. I live in another part. Lakewater. Something on fire over here. I am sour when you are sour, sweet when you are sweet. You are my face and my back. Only through you can I know this back-scratching pleasure. Now people the likes of you and I come clapping, inventing dances, climbing into this high meadow. I am a spoiled parrot who eats only candy. I have no interest in bitter food. Some have been given harsh knowledge. Not I. Some are lame and jerking along. I am smooth and glidingly quick. Their road is full of washed-out places and long inclines. Mine is royally level, effortless. The huge Jerusalem mosque stands inside me, and women full of light. Laughter leaps out. It is the nature of the rose to laugh. It cannot help but laugh.
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (Bridge to the Soul: Journeys Into the Music and Silence of the Heart)
I do not pretend, of course, that I have never done it; mere politeness forces one to it; there are women who sulk and grow bellicose unless one at least makes the motions of kissing them. But what I mean is that I have never found the act a tenth part as agreeable as poets, the authors of musical comedy librettos, and (on the contrary side) chaperones and the gendarmerie make it out. The physical sensation, far from being pleasant, is intensely uncomfortable—the suspension of respiration, indeed, quickly resolves itself into a feeling of suffocation—and the posture necessitated by the approximation of lips and lips is unfailingly a constrained and ungraceful one. Theoretically, a man kisses a woman perpendicularly, with their eyes, those "windows of the soul," synchronizing exactly. But actually, on account of the incompressibility of the nasal cartilages, he has to incline either his or her head to an angle of at least 60 degrees, and the result is that his right eye gazes insanely at the space between her eyebrows, while his left eye is fixed upon some vague spot behind her. An instantaneous photograph of such a maneuvre, taken at the moment of incidence, would probably turn the stomach of even the most romantic man, and force him, in sheer self-respect, to renounce kissing as he has renounced leap-frog and walking on stilts.
H.L. Mencken (Damn! (A Book of Calumny))
I knew a young fellow once, who was studying to play the bagpipes, and you would be surprised at the amount of opposition he had to contend with. Why, not even from the members of his own family did he receive what you could call active encouragement. His father was dead against the business from the beginning, and spoke quite unfeelingly on the subject. My friend used to get up early in the morning to practise, but he had to give that plan up, because of his sister. She was somewhat religiously inclined, and she said it seemed such an awful thing to begin the day like that. So he sat up at night instead, and played after the family had gone to bed, but that did not do, as it got the house such a bad name. People, going home late, would stop outside to listen, and then put it about all over the town, the next morning, that a fearful murder had been committed at Mr. Jefferson's the night before; and would describe how they had heard the victim's shrieks and the brutal oaths and curses of the murderer, followed by the prayer for mercy, and the last dying gurgle of the corpse. So they let him practise in the day-time, in the back-kitchen with all the doors shut; but his more successful passages could generally be heard in the sitting-room, in spite of these precautions, and would affect his mother almost to tears. She said it put her in mind of her poor father (he had been swallowed by a shark, poor man, while bathing off the coast of New Guinea - where the connection came in, she could not explain). Then they knocked up a little place for him at the bottom of the garden, about quarter of a mile from the house, and made him take the machine down there when he wanted to work it; and sometimes a visitor would come to the house who knew nothing of the matter, and they would forget to tell him all about it, and caution him, and he would go out for a stroll round the garden and suddenly get within earshot of those bagpipes, without being prepared for it, or knowing what it was. If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad.
Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat (Three Men, #1))
Moments later, I was climbing nervously into the back of the car. The driver wore the archetypal expression of an antagonist. No words were exchanged beyond the brief lines uttered to this nameless stranger, whose inclinations remained unclear. The car sped along empty roads and traversed dingy alleyways. Music blared from its speakers. I did not remember exhaling throughout the entire journey.
Agnes Chew (The Desire for Elsewhere)
Humanity is capable of such mindless horror. We embody the worst inclinations of all living things on earth — cruelty, hubris, greed, unspeakable violence, and disregard for consequences. And then we turn around and embody the best of all living things on earth — compassion, music, art, literature, scientific inquiry, invention and great imagination. What a burden it is to be human. What a privilege.
S.W. Clemens (The Seal Cove Theoretical Society)
Keeping in touch with the things that help us feel alive – music, books, movies, even the theatre if, mysteriously, you are that way inclined – becomes a battle, and one that many of us lose, as we get older;
Nick Hornby (Books, Movies, Rhythm, Blues: Twenty Years of Writing about Film, Music and Books (Penguin Specials))
For example, try to keep your living space clean and organized. Make your living space aesthetically and artistically beautiful. Have beautiful pictures at the wall, have lots of plants. Light incense and/or aromatherapy oils. If you are spiritually inclined, create spiritual altars in different places in your home with pictures of the Masters. Play beautiful inspiring music in the background, or meditation tapes.
Joshua D. Stone (The Golden Book of Melchizedek: How to Become an Integrated Christ/Buddha in This Lifetime Volume 1)
When an artist is asked to speak about form, you expect something different than when a critic talks about it. Because you think that somewhere between sentences and words, the secret will slip out. I am trying to give you that secret; it isn't a secret at all, but it is building solidly, not using secrets. I had been trying to extend into metaphysical extension; that film is changing, metamorphic; that is, infinite; the idea that the movement of life is totally important rather than a single life. My films were built on an incline, an increase in intensity. I hoped to make a form which was infinite, the changingness of things. I thought I would want to find a total form which conveyed that sense, particularly in reference to an Oriental subject. My impression was: one is walking down a corridor of a hotel. One hears a sound, opens a door and a man is playing; one listens for three minutes and closes the door. The music went on before you opened the door and it continues after you close the door. There was neither beginning nor end. Western music increases in intensity to a climax and then resolves itself. Oriental music is infinite; it goes on and on. The Chinese theater goes on for hours and hours with time for lunch moving scenery, etc.
Maya Deren
The artistically inclined delight in the Game because it provides opportunities for improvisation and fantasy. The strict scholars and scientists despise it – and so do some musicians also – because, they say, it lacks that degree of strictness which their specialties can achieve. Well and good, you will encounter these antinomies, and in time you will discover that they are subjective, not objective – that, for example, a fancy-free artist avoids pure mathematics or logic not because he understands them and could say something about them if he wished, but because he instinctively inclines toward other things. Such instinctive and violent inclinations and disinclinations are signs by which you can recognize the pettier souls. In great souls and superior minds, these passions are not found. Each of us is merely one human being, merely an experiment, a way station. But each of us should be on the way toward perfection, should be striving to reach the center, not the periphery. Remember this: one can be a strict logician or grammarian, and at the same time full of imagination and music. One can be a musician or Glass Bead Game player and at the same time wholly devoted to rule and order. The kind of person we want to develop, the kind of person we aim to become, would at any time be able to exchange his discipline or art for any other. He would infuse the Glass Bead Game with crystalline logic, and grammar with creative imagination. That is how we ought to be. We should be so constituted that we can at any time be placed in a different position without offering resistance or losing our heads.
Hermann Hesse (The Glass Bead Game (Vintage Classics))
And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments—that is the third sort of test—and see what will be their behaviour: like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State; he shall be honoured in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension to exactness. And,
Plato (The Republic)
Quantum mechanics. What a repository, a dump, of human aspiration it was, the borderland where mathematical rigor defeated common sense, and reason and fantasy irrationally merged. Here the mystically inclined could find whatever they required and claim science as their proof. And for these ingenious men in their spare time, what ghostly and beautiful music it must be—spectral asymmetry, resonances, entanglement, quantum harmonic oscillators—beguiling ancient airs, the harmony of the spheres that might transmute a lead wall into gold and bring into being the engine that ran on virtually nothing, on virtual particles, that emitted no harm and would power the human enterprise as well as save it.
Ian McEwan (Solar)
This inclination is a reflection of a person’s uniqueness. This uniqueness is not something merely poetic or philosophical—it is a scientific fact that genetically, every one of us is unique; our exact genetic makeup has never happened before and will never be repeated. This uniqueness is revealed to us through the preferences we innately feel for particular activities or subjects of study. Such inclinations can be toward music or mathematics, certain sports or games, solving puzzle-like problems, tinkering and building, or playing with words. With those who stand out by their later mastery, they experience this inclination more deeply and clearly than others. They experience it as an inner calling. It tends to dominate their thoughts and dreams. They find their way, by accident or sheer effort, to a career path in which this inclination can flourish. This intense connection and desire allows them to withstand the pain of the process—the self-doubts, the tedious hours of practice and study, the inevitable setbacks, the endless barbs from the envious. They develop a resiliency and confidence that others lack.
Robert Greene (Mastery (The Modern Machiavellian Robert Greene Book 1))
She observed the dumb-show by which her neighbour was expressing her passion for music, but she refrained from copying it. This was not to say that, for once that she had consented to spend a few minutes in Mme. de Saint-Euverte's house, the Princesse des Laumes would not have wished (so that the act of politeness to her hostess which she had performed by coming might, so to speak, 'count double') to shew herself as friendly and obliging as possible. But she had a natural horror of what she called 'exaggerating,' and always made a point of letting people see that she 'simply must not' indulge in any display of emotion that was not in keeping with the tone of the circle in which she moved, although such displays never failed to make an impression upon her, by virtue of that spirit of imitation, akin to timidity, which is developed in the most self-confident persons, by contact with an unfamiliar environment, even though it be inferior to their own. She began to ask herself whether these gesticulations might not, perhaps, be a necessary concomitant of the piece of music that was being played, a piece which, it might be, was in a different category from all the music that she had ever heard before; and whether to abstain from them was not a sign of her own inability to understand the music, and of discourtesy towards the lady of the house; with the result that, in order to express by a compromise both of her contradictory inclinations in turn, at one moment she would merely straighten her shoulder-straps or feel in her golden hair for the little balls of coral or of pink enamel, frosted with tiny diamonds, which formed its simple but effective ornament, studying, with a cold interest, her impassioned neighbour, while at another she would beat time for a few bars with her fan, but, so as not to forfeit her independence, she would beat a different time from the pianist's.
Marcel Proust (Du côté de chez Swann (À la recherche du temps perdu, #1))
Except as often as Wagner preached that they were collectively engaged in the "music of the future," and no matter how much Lucien was inclined to believe this, there were moments when he, too, felt crushed by a despondency that went deeper than his problems in rehearsal; it was the difference, he knew, between understanding the power of waves and actually being battered in the ocean.
Matthew Gallaway (The Metropolis Case)
Since there are always talented players in these emerging categories, no matter how grating they may be to the ear of the more traditionally inclined, I was not surprised when the heavy metal band Metallica achieved a style that was huge and orchestral in its guitar textures, showing itself to be perfectly capable of producing beautiful melodies with unusual, finely constructed harmonies.
Linda Ronstadt (Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir)
The composer came to represent the cultural-political unconscious of modernity—an aesthetic war zone in which the Western world struggled with its raging contradictions, its longings for creation and destruction, its inclinations toward beauty and violence. Wagner was arguably the presiding spirit of the bourgeois century that achieved its highest splendor around 1900 and then went to its doom.
Alex Ross (Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music)
Do musical preferences predict political inclinations? Not long ago, an official with Pandora said that its predictions about those inclinations, based on zip code as well as musical choices, are between 75 and 80 percent accurate. And with that level of accuracy, it developed an advertising service “that would enable candidates and political organizations to target the majority of its 73 million active monthly Pandora listeners based on its sense of their political leanings.
Cass R. Sunstein (#Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media)
One of them is a very familiar personage. Her name is “Mother Church.” She is, in many ways, an admirable and dedicated person, deeply concerned about her children, endlessly and tirelessly careful for every detail of their welfare. Her long experience has taught her to understand her family very well. She knows their capabilities and she knows their weakness even better. She is patient and imperturbable, quite unshockable (she has witnessed all of the considerable range of human wickedness in her time) and there are no lengths to which she ill not go to educate her family. She has a huge fund of stories, maxims and advice, all of them time-tested, and usually interesting as well. She is very talented, skilled din creating a beautiful home for her children; she can show them how to enrich their lives with the glory of music and art. And there is no doubt that she loves God, and wishes to guide her children according to his will. On the other hand, she is extremely inclined to feel that her will and God's are identical. In her eyes there can be no better, no other, way than hers. If she is unshockable, she is frequently cynical. She is shrewd, with a thoroughly earthy and often humorous shrewdness. She knows her children's limitations so well that she will not allow them to outgrow them. She will lie and cheat if she feels it is necessary to keep her charges safe; she uses her authority 'for their own good' but if it seems to be questioned she is ruthless in suppressing revolt. She is hugely self-satisfied, and her judgement, while experienced, is often insensitive and therefore cruel. She is suspicious of eccentricity and new ideas, since her own are so clearly effective, and non-conformists get a rough time, though after they are dead she often feels differently about them. This is Mother Church, a crude, domineering, violent, loving, deceitful, compassionate old lady, a person to whom one cannot be indifferent, whom may one may love much and yet fight against, whom one may hate and yet respect.
Rosemary Haughton (The Catholic Thing)
Of the natural conditions of man is his search after an Exalted Being towards Whom he has an inherent attraction. This is manifested by an infant from the moment of its birth. As soon as it is born, it displays a spiritual characteristic that it inclines towards its mother and is inspired by love of her. As its faculties are developed and its nature begins to display itself openly, this inherent quality is displayed more and more strongly. It finds no comfort anywhere except in the lap of its mother. If it is separated from her and finds itself at a distance from her, its life becomes bitter. Heaps of bounties fail to beguile it away from its mother in whom all its joy is concentrated. It feels no joy apart from her. What, then, is the nature of the attraction which an infant feels so strongly towards its mother? It is the attraction which the True Creator has implanted in the nature of man. The same attraction comes into play whenever a person feels love for another. It is a reflection of the attraction that is inherent in man's nature towards God, as if he is in search of something that he misses, the name of which he has forgotten and which he seeks to find in one thing or another which he takes up from time to time. A person's love of wealth or offspring or wife or his soul being attracted towards a musical voice are all indications of his search for the True Beloved.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam)
Your charming charm is a super sexy mega power that is simply impossible to overcome. Sweetest gourmet, I adore your gorgeous body, when I see you, only one word sounds in my head: yum, I will give myself completely to you. I will always love only you unconsciously, unconsciously, your gently erotic image sat in the depths of my mind completely. From your amazingly contagious beauty, your mouth opens and speechless is lost. Dizzyingly, stunningly beautiful, you are like a giant tornado, from which everything attracts you. And the heart and soul yearn all the time only for you. It doesn't matter if you love me or not, the main thing is that I still love you, and in my subconscious mind, I will only love you forever. Your luxurious appearance of the highest quality, this is a workshop, the filigree work of Mother Nature, this is just a masterpiece that constitutes a unique example of true beauty, you have no equal, you are a girl of high caliber. You are absolutely beautiful to such an extent, so beautiful, so exotic, erotic, and your image sounds poetic like very beautiful music of love, that I’m just afraid and shy to come to you, I’m afraid to talk to you, as if standing next to a goddess, or with a super mega star, a world scale model that even aliens probably know. My heart beats more often, I can’t talk normally, from excitement, goosebumps all over my body, and it just shakes. All these are symptoms of true love for you, well, simply: oh), wow). To be your boyfriend and husband is the greatest honor in the world, he knelt before you with flowers in his hands. Your appearance is perfect just like Barbie. You are so beautiful that only you want to have sex forever, countless, infinite number of times. You are unattainable, you are like a star whose light of the soul, like a searchlight, illuminates me in the deep darkness of solitude. In love with you thorough. You are simply amazingly beautiful. You are the best of the best. Goddess of all goddesses, empress of all empresses, queen of all queens. More beautiful you just can not imagine a girl. Sexier than you just can not be anything. Beautiful soul just is not found. There was nothing more perfect than you and never will be, simply because I think so. Laponka, I'm your faithful fan, you are my only idol, idol, icon of beauty. It doesn't matter who you are, I will accept you any. Because in any case I am eager to be only with you. You have a sexy smile, and your sensual look is just awesome. And from your voice and look a pleasant shiver all over your body. You are special, the best that is in all worlds, universes and dimensions. You're just a sight for sore eyes. To you I feel the most powerful, love and sexual inclination. You're cooler than any Viagra and afrodosiak. From your beauty just cling to the constraints and embarrassment.
NOT A BOOK
The conditions under which any one understands me, and necessarily understands me — I know them only too well. Even to endure my seriousness, my passion, he must carry intellectual integrity to the verge of hardness. He must be accustomed to living on mountain tops — and to looking upon the wretched gabble of politics and nationalism as beneath him. He must have become indifferent; he must never ask of the truth whether it brings profit to him or a fatality to him .... He must have an inclination, born of strength, for questions that no one has the courage for; the courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth. The experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hitherto remained unheard. And the will to economize in the grand manner — to hold together his strength, his enthusiasm .... Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self .... Very well, then! of that sort only are my readers, my true readers, my readers foreordained: of what account are the rest? — The rest are merely humanity. — One must make one’s self superior to humanity, in power, in loftiness of soul, — in contempt.
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ)
It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake. I had often begged the “trap-door lover,” as we used to call Erik in my country, to open its mysterious doors to me. He always refused. I made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance. Watch him as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick to enable me to see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake. One day, when I thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rowed toward that part of the wall through which I had seen Erik disappear. It was then that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and whose charm was very nearly fatal to me. I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that hovered all around me. It was half breath, half music; it rose softly from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it through I knew not what artifice. It followed me, moved with me and was so soft that it did not alarm me. On the contrary, in my longing to approach the source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing came from the water itself. By this time, I was alone in the boat in the middle of the lake; the voice—for it was now distinctly a voice—was beside me, on the water. I leaned over, leaned still farther. The lake was perfectly calm, and a moonbeam that passed through the air hole in the Rue Scribe showed me absolutely nothing on its surface, which was smooth and black as ink. I shook my ears to get rid of a possible humming; but I soon had to accept the fact that there was no humming in the ears so harmonious as the singing whisper that followed and now attracted me. Had I been inclined to superstition, I should have certainly thought that I had to do with some siren whose business it was to confound the traveler who should venture on the waters of the house on the lake. Fortunately, I come from a country where we are too fond of fantastic things not to know them through and through; and I had no doubt but that I was face to face with some new invention of Erik’s. But this invention was so perfect that, as I leaned out of the boat, I was impelled less by a desire to discover its trick than to enjoy its charm; and I leaned out, leaned out until I almost overturned the boat. Suddenly, two monstrous arms issued from the bosom of the waters and seized me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths with irresistible force. I should certainly have been lost, if I had not had time to give a cry by which Erik knew me. For it was he; and, instead of drowning me, as was certainly his first intention, he swam with me and laid me gently on the bank: “How imprudent you are!” he said, as he stood before me, dripping with water. “Why try to enter my house? I never invited you! I don’t want you there, nor anybody! Did you save my life only to make it unbearable to me? However great the service you rendered him, Erik may end by forgetting it; and you know that nothing can restrain Erik, not even Erik himself.” He spoke, but I had now no other wish than to know what I already called the trick of the siren. He satisfied my curiosity, for Erik, who is a real monster—I have seen him at work in Persia, alas—is also, in certain respects, a regular child, vain and self-conceited, and there is nothing he loves so much, after astonishing people, as to prove all the really miraculous ingenuity of his mind. He laughed and showed me a long reed. “It’s the silliest trick you ever saw,” he said, “but it’s very useful for breathing and singing in the water. I learned it from the Tonkin pirates, who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the rivers.
Gaston Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera)
I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many times we reopen 'King Lear,' never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person the. more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We would prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.
Vladimir Nabokov
But never forget what I have told you so often: our mission is to recognize contraries for what they are: first of all as contraries, but then as opposite poles of a unity. Such is the nature of the Glass Bead Game. The artistically inclined delight in the Game because it provides opportunities for improvisation and fantasy. The strict scholars and scientists despise it—and so do some musicians also—because, they say, it lacks that degree of strictness which their specialties can achieve. Well and good, you will encounter these antinomies, and in time you will discover that they are subjective, not objective—that, for example, a fancy-free artist avoids pure mathematics or logic not because he understands them and could say something about them if he wished, but because he instinctively inclines toward other things. Such instinctive and violent inclinations and disinclinations are signs by which you can recognize the pettier souls. In great souls and superior minds, these passions are not found. Each of us is merely one human being, merely an experiment, a way station. But each of us should be on the way toward perfection, should be striving to reach the center, not the periphery. Remember this: one can be a strict logician or grammarian, and at the same time full of imagination and music. One can be a musician or Glass Bead Game player and at the same time wholly devoted to rule and order. The kind of person we want to develop, the kind of person we aim to become, would at any time be able to exchange his discipline or art for any other. He would infuse the Glass Bead Game with crystalline logic, and grammar with creative imagination. That is how we ought to be.
Hermann Hesse (The Glass Bead Game)
First off, as we saw above, ignorant people act according to the demands of their society rather than following their own tastes and inclinations. As to how they will entertain themselves, what films they will see and what restaurants, cafés or nightclubs they’ll go out to, they base their decisions on their society’s standards. They think that doing the chic and fashionable things that society approves of will earn them position, importance and respect in the eyes of others. For example, to be seen in a popular nightclub “where everyone goes” is very important for their self-respect. Even if they feel uncomfortable there, being able to tell colleagues or friends the next day that they had a good time at that popular place allows them to put on airs. When we look at these places of entertainment, we see that nothing in them appeals to the human spirit; rather, they make people weary and anxious. Most of these places are very crowded and full of stale air, due to the many people smoking. Given the noise, it is hard to hear what other people are saying. No matter how good the music is or how delicious the food is, the crowd and the noise make it impossible to enjoy them. Even if this place was invigorating, bright, clean, and well-appointed, the result would be the same, because the people who go there do not follow the Qur’an’s morality and therefore are not content. In an environment filled with envy and rivalry, people cannot really enjoy themselves. This can take place only in a natural, intimate, friendly, and secure environment. However, they can hardly be content if they are constantly looking for faults in others and humiliate other people by criticizing their shortcomings. It’s obvious that people who socialize with one another mainly to vent their envy and rivalry cannot enjoy any of their shared meals, their conversations, listening to music together or dancing. Instead, they will totally wear themselves out, both spiritually and physically. This is a fact that they themselves cannot deny.
Harun Yahya (Those Who Exhaust All Their Pleasures In This Life)
First off, as we saw above, ignorant people act according to the demands of their society rather than following their own tastes and inclinations. As to how they will entertain themselves, what films they will see and what restaurants, cafés or nightclubs they’ll go out to, they base their decisions on their society’s standards. They think that doing the chic and fashionable things that society approves of will earn them position, importance and respect in the eyes of others. For example, to be seen in a popular nightclub “where everyone goes” is very important for their self-respect. Even if they feel uncomfortable there, being able to tell colleagues or friends the next day that they had a good time at that popular place allows them to put on airs. When we look at these places of entertainment, we see that nothing in them appeals to the human spirit; rather, they make people weary and anxious. Most of these places are very crowded and full of stale air, due to the many people smoking. Given the noise, it is hard to hear what other people are saying. No matter how good the music is or how delicious the food is, the crowd and the noise make it impossible to enjoy them. Even if this place was invigorating, bright, clean, and well-appointed, the result would be the same, because the people who go 36 THOSE WHO EXHAUST ALL THEIR PLEASURES IN THIS LIFE there do not follow the Qur’an’s morality and therefore are not content. In an environment filled with envy and rivalry, people cannot really enjoy themselves. This can take place only in a natural, intimate, friendly, and secure environment. However, they can hardly be content if they are constantly looking for faults in others and humiliate other people by criticizing their shortcomings. It’s obvious that people who socialize with one another mainly to vent their envy and rivalry cannot enjoy any of their shared meals, their conversations, listening to music together or dancing. Instead, they will totally wear themselves out, both spiritually and physically. This is a fact that they themselves cannot deny.
Harun Yahya (Those Who Exhaust All Their Pleasures In This Life)
The concentrated structure of musical form, based on dramatic climaxes, gradually breaks up in romanticism and gives way again to the cumulative composition of the older music. Sonata form falls to pieces and is replaced more and more often by other, less severe and less schematically moulded forms—by small-scale lyrical and descriptive genres, such as the Fantasy and the Rhapsody, the Arabesque and the Étude, the Intermezzo and the Impromptu, the Improvisation and the Variation. Even extensive works are often made up of such miniature forms, which no longer constitute, from the structural point of view, the acts of a drama, but the scenes of a revue. A classical sonata or symphony was the world in parvo: a microcosm. A succession of musical pictures, such as Schumann’s Carnaval or Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage, is like a painter’s sketch-book; it may contain magnificent lyrical-impressionistic details, but it abandons the attempt to create a total impression and an organic unity from the very beginning. [...] This change of form is accompanied by the literary inclinations of the composers and their bias towards programme music. The intermingling of forms also makes itself felt in music and is expressed most conspicuously in the fact that the romantic composers are often very gifted and important writers. In the painting and poetry of the period the disintegration of form does not proceed anything like so quickly, nor is it so far-reaching as in music. The explanation of the difference is partly that the cyclical ‘medieval’ structure had long since been overcome in the other arts, whereas it remained predominant in music until the middle of the eighteenth century, and only began to yield to formal unity after the death of Bach. In music it was therefore much easier to revert to it than, for example, in painting where it was completely out of date. The romantics’ historical interest in old music and the revival of Bach’s prestige had, however, only a subordinate part in the dissolution of strict sonata form, the real reason is to be sought in a change of taste which was in essentials sociologically conditioned.
Arnold Hauser (The Social History of Art Volume 3: Rococo, Classicism and Romanticism)
The wedding of David and Michal was a glorious affair. Though Saul was normally stingy with his money, he was not so with his daughters. Michal had started the day with a bath followed by a bodily anointing of oil. She wore a linen and silk dress with embroidered cloth of Phoenician purple. Her hair was brushed to a soft perfection and placed beneath her Tyrian style crown of gold. She was bedecked with gold and silver jewelry from Egypt. Bracelets, necklaces, ear coverings and a ring on her nose. She walked through the Gibeah streets in fine calf leather sandals, surrounded by a cadre of dozens of virgin bridesmaid companions dressed in white linen. A band of minstrels led her with rejoicing on tambourine, flute, and lyre. She felt like a queen. She would be a queen one day. She knew that she was marrying the mightiest warrior in all of Israel. The gibborim who had killed the giant Rephaim Philistine, who her own father, the anointed warrior king, could not conquer. All she could think of the entire journey to the palace were the lyrics she first heard her from the lips of her bridegroom upon their first acquaintance. She had never forgot them. They were burned into her heart. He had sung a song of virginal submission to a manly king as a sample of his musical talent to her father. But she knew he had sung those words for her. She knew by the look in his eyes, his unquenchable stare of desire for her. It was like a prophecy. Now those words were coming true, she was going to be living them out any moment. Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. The people of Israel lined the streets and cheered their beautiful princess as she approached the entranceway to the palace. She could feel her heart pounding out of her chest. Would he sing to her on their wedding night? Would he seduce her with his musical talent before he ravished her? All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold. In many-colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king.
Brian Godawa (David Ascendant (Chronicles of the Nephilim, #7))
It must be disheartening work learning a musical instrument. You would think that Society, for its own sake, would do all it could to assist a man to acquire the art of playing a musical instrument. But it doesn’t! I knew a young fellow once, who was studying to play the bagpipes, and you would be surprised at the amount of opposition he had to contend with. Why, not even from the members of his own family did he receive what you could call active encouragement. His father was dead against the business from the beginning, and spoke quite unfeelingly on the subject. My friend used to get up early in the morning to practise, but he had to give that plan up, because of his sister. She was somewhat religiously inclined, and she said it seemed such an awful thing to begin the day like that. So he sat up at night instead, and played after the family had gone to bed, but that did not do, as it got the house such a bad name. People, going home late, would stop outside to listen, and then put it about all over the town, the next morning, that a fearful murder had been committed at Mr. Jefferson’s the night before; and would describe how they had heard the victim’s shrieks and the brutal oaths and curses of the murderer, followed by the prayer for mercy, and the last dying gurgle of the corpse. So they let him practise in the day-time, in the back-kitchen with all the doors shut; but his more successful passages could generally be heard in the sitting-room, in spite of these precautions, and would affect his mother almost to tears. She said it put her in mind of her poor father (he had been swallowed by a shark, poor man, while bathing off the coast of New Guinea — where the connection came in, she could not explain). Then they knocked up a little place for him at the bottom of the garden, about quarter of a mile from the house, and made him take the machine down there when he wanted to work it; and sometimes a visitor would come to the house who knew nothing of the matter, and they would forget to tell him all about it, and caution him, and he would go out for a stroll round the garden and suddenly get within earshot of those bagpipes, without being prepared for it, or knowing what it was. If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad. There is, it must be confessed, something very sad about the early efforts of an amateur in bagpipes.
Various (100 Eternal Masterpieces of Literature [volume 2])
When you teach someone your true name, you place everything you are in their hands.” “I know, but I may never have the chance again. This is the only thing I have to give, and I would give it to you.” “Eragon, what you are proposing…It is the most precious thing one person can give another.” “I know.” A shiver ran through Arya, and then she seemed to withdraw within herself. After a time, she said, “No one has ever offered me such a gift before…I’m honored by your trust, Eragon, and I understand how much this means to you, but no, I must decline. It would be wrong for you to do this and wrong for me to accept just because tomorrow we may be killed or enslaved. Danger is no reason to act foolishly, no matter how great our peril.” Eragon inclined his head. Her reasons were good reasons, and he would respect her choice. “Very well, as you wish,” he said. “Thank you, Eragon.” A moment passed. Then he said, “Have you ever told anyone your true name?” “No.” “Not even your mother?” Her mouth twisted. “No.” “Do you know what it is?” “Of course. Why would you think otherwise?” He half shrugged. “I didn’t. I just wasn’t sure.” Silence came between them. Then, “When…how did you learn your true name?” Arya was quiet for so long, he began to think that she would refuse to answer. Then she took a breath and said, “It was a number of years after I left Du Weldenvarden, when I finally had become accustomed to my role among the Varden and the dwarves. Faolin and my other companions were away, and I had a great deal of time to myself. I spent most of it exploring Tronjheim, wandering in the empty reaches of the city-mountain, where others rarely tread. Tronjheim is bigger than most realize, and there are many strange things within it: rooms, people, creatures, forgotten artifacts…As I wandered, I thought, and I came to know myself better than ever I had before. One day I discovered a room somewhere high in Tronjheim--I doubt I could locate it again, even if I tried. A beam of sunlight seemed to pour into the room, though the ceiling was solid, and in the center of the room was a pedestal, and upon the pedestal was growing a single flower. I do not know what kind of flower it was; I have never seen its like before or since. The petals were purple, but the center of the blossom was like a drop of blood. There were thorns upon the stem, and the flower exuded the most wonderful scent and seemed to hum with a music all its own. It was such an amazing and unlikely thing to find, I stayed in the room, staring at the flower for longer than I can remember, and it was then and there that I was finally able to put words to who I was and who I am.” “I would like to see that flower someday.” “Perhaps you will.” Arya glanced toward the Varden’s camp. “I should go. There is much yet to be done.” He nodded. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then.” “Tomorrow.” Arya began to walk away. After a few steps, she paused and looked back. “I’m glad that Saphira chose you as her Rider, Eragon. And I’m proud to have fought alongside you. You have become more than any of us dared hope. Whatever happens tomorrow, know that.” Then she resumed her stride, and soon she disappeared around the curve of the hill, leaving him alone with Saphira and the Eldunarí.
Christopher Paolini (Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4))
He never dreams about John Newton, never dreams of Jesus, and now that he’s getting on in years Henry prefers his saints to be just ordinary men and women who make no great claim to saintliness. He’s not in any way an atheist, it’s more like these days he’s not specially inclined to put religious faith in people what might let him down, or in some institution other than his own self who he’s sure of. Henry raises up a rough church in his heart what he can carry with him where he goes, poking around in the old barns and that, with humming to himself instead of organ music and the stained-glass light spilled out of his imagination on the floor in all the straw and horse muck. Henry thinks about all what he’s done, taking care of his mom and pop like they took care of him, crossing the great wide sea and sliding down upon Northampton in a snowy woollen avalanche, him and Selina raising up their children without losing any of them, and he feels contented with himself and with his life. It’s best, Henry believes, a man should be his own ideal and champion, however long it takes him to arrive there.
Alan Moore (Jerusalem)
Cizek had used art as the point of entry of his thinking into a whole new world of education—an avenue that had never occurred to me. He realized that children by nature are capable of real, indeed often great, art; that artistic activity is natural for them; and that adult interference in the natural development of children as artists was detrimental to that development. From that starting point, he made a leap into the entire realm of education and child development, concluding that the natural, unhindered growth of children enables them to reach their full potential as human beings, and that adult interference in general is more of a liability than an asset in this process of growth. That leap, from art to all domains of maturation, was an intuitive one for Cizek and his followers. It was not until I read the article referred to in the opening paragraph of this section that I not only gained an understanding of the real basis for Cizek’s intuitive leap, but I also achieved a new and enriching perspective on the nature of education, one that I had hitherto hardly noticed. The key is the observation that certain activities are universal, transcultural, and therefore related to the very essence of being a human. Even more significant and telling—and here once again Cizek hit upon the truth, albeit not consciously—is the fact that these same activities are engaged in by children from the earliest age, and therefore are not, indeed cannot be, the products of sociocultural influences. This places these activities in the realm of biological evolution rather than the realm of cultural history.50 And because these three activities—making music, decorating things, and talking—are the outcome of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, they must represent in and of themselves an important aspect of the exalted place humans occupy in the natural world. In other words, these activities not only represent the outcome of evolution, but they also represent important features that account for the specific place that the Homo sapiens species occupies in the natural order. To allow children—and indeed adults—to engage in these three activities to their heart’s desire is to allow them to realize their fullest potential as human beings. External interference in their exercise, although perhaps sometimes justifiable for social reasons (man is, after all, a social animal too, another aspect of evolution), always involves some diminishing of their ability to become what they by nature are inclined to be. Once this is realized, it is almost impossible to comprehend the enthusiasm with which educators and child development specialists advocate systems for coercing children, against their clear inclination and will, to curtail these activities in favor of an externally imposed adult agenda. Although there might have been some economic justification for such curtailment in the industrial age, there is no longer the slightest pretext of an advantage gained through the suppression of the natural, evolved behavior of children. In
Russell L. Ackoff (Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track)
The transmission of culture assures the survival of the particular forms given to our existence and expression as human beings. It goes much beyond our customs and traditions and symbols to include how we express ourselves in gestures and language, the way we adorn ourselves in dress and decoration, what and how and when we celebrate. Culture also defines our rituals around contact and connection, greetings and good-byes, belonging and loyalty, love and intimacy. Central to any culture is its food — how food is prepared and eaten, the attitudes toward food, and the functions food serves. The music people make and the music they listen to is an integral part of any culture. The transmission of culture is, normally, an automatic part of child-rearing. In addition to facilitating dependence, shielding against external stress, and giving birth to independence, attachment also is the conduit of culture. As long as the child is properly attaching to the adults responsible, the culture flows into the child. To put it another way, the attaching child becomes spontaneously informed, in the sense of absorbing the cultural forms of the adult. According to Howard Gardner, a leading American developmentalist, more is spontaneously absorbed from the parents in the first four years of life than during all the rest of a person's formal education put together. When attachment is working, the transmission of culture does not require deliberate instruction or teaching on the part of the adult or even conscious learning on the part of the child. The child's hunger for connection and inclination to seek cues from adults take care of it. If the child is helped to attain genuine individuality and a mature independence of mind, the passing down of culture from one generation to another is not a process of mindless imitation or blind obedience.
Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
Children displaced from their families, unconnected to their teachers, and not yet mature enough to relate to one another as separate beings, automatically regroup to satisfy their instinctive drive for attachment. The culture of the group is either invented or borrowed from the peer culture at large. It does not take children very long to know what tribe they belong to, what the rules are, whom they can talk to, and whom they must keep at a distance. Despite our attempts to teach our children respect for individual differences and to instill in them a sense of belonging to a cohesive civilization, we are fragmenting at an alarming rate into tribal chaos. Our very own children are leading the way. The time we as parents and educators spend trying to teach our children social tolerance, acceptance, and etiquette would be much better invested in cultivating a connection with them. Children nurtured in traditional hierarchies of attachment are not nearly as susceptible to the spontaneous forces of tribalization. The social values we wish to inculcate can be transmitted only across existing lines of attachment. The culture created by peer orientation does not mix well with other cultures. Because peer orientation exists unto itself, so does the culture it creates. It operates much more like a cult than a culture. Immature beings who embrace the culture generated by peer orientation become cut off from people of other cultures. Peer-oriented youth actually glory in excluding traditional values and historical connections. People from differing cultures that have been transmitted vertically retain the capacity to relate to one another respectfully, even if in practice that capacity is often overwhelmed by the historical or political conflicts in which human beings become caught up. Beneath the particular cultural expressions they can mutually recognize the universality of human values and cherish the richness of diversity. Peer-oriented kids are, however, inclined to hang out with one another exclusively. They set themselves apart from those not like them. As our peer-oriented children reach adolescence, many parents find themselves feeling as if their very own children are barely recognizable with their tribal music, clothing, language, rituals, and body decorations. “Tattooing and piercing, once shocking, are now merely generational signposts in a culture that constantly redraws the line between acceptable and disallowed behavior,” a Canadian journalist pointed out in 2003. Many of our children are growing up bereft of the universal culture that produced the timeless creations of humankind: The Bhagavad Gita; the writings of Rumi and Dante, Shakespeare and Cervantes and Faulkner, or of the best and most innovative of living authors; the music of Beethoven and Mahler; or even the great translations of the Bible. They know only what is current and popular, appreciate only what they can share with their peers. True universality in the positive sense of mutual respect, curiosity, and shared human values does not require a globalized culture created by peer-orientation. It requires psychological maturity — a maturity that cannot result from didactic education, only from healthy development. Only adults can help children grow up in this way. And only in healthy relationships with adult mentors — parents, teachers, elders, artistic, musical and intellectual creators — can children receive their birthright, the universal and age-honored cultural legacy of humankind. Only in such relationships can they fully develop their own capacities for free and individual and fresh cultural expression.
Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
Before Rowland could reply a shout from the crow’s-nest split the air. “Ice,” yelled the lookout; “ice ahead. Iceberg. Right under the bows.” The first officer ran amidships, and the captain, who had remained there, sprang to the engine-room telegraph, and this time the lever was turned. But in five seconds the bow of the Titan began to lift, and ahead, and on either hand, could be seen, through the fog, a field ofice, which arose in an incline to a hundred feet high in her track. The music in the theater ceased, and among the babel of shouts and cries, and the deafening noise of steel, scraping and crashing over ice, Rowland heard the agonized voice of a woman crying from the bridge steps: “Myra—Myra, where are you? Come back.
Morgan Robertson (The Wreck of the Titan)
There were a number of ways in which the homosexual dimension of these stories could be disguised or seemingly eliminated. For example, the obstacle to the heterosexual romance might be presented not as the love between the two men but as a shared attitude toward women, whether as contempt (often disguised as womanizing), distrust, or some other aversive reaction. In musicals, where double readings are nearly always possible, these kinds of “disguises” will seem either fully effective (from resolutely “straight” perspectives) or sure signs of a hidden subtext (for those inclined and equipped to read them).28 In Singin’ in the Rain, the male friendship between Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown may well have been patterned on An American in Paris (although potential models are legion), with Donald O’Connor’s dancing adding a spirited physical dimension to the cynical, wisecracking, piano-playing sidekick of Oscar Levant in the earlier film. The homoerotic overtones are somewhat more overt in the earlier film, especially given Levant’s narcissism and insinuating delivery, which always seems to hint at unspoken meanings.
Raymond Knapp (The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity)
Ever since the sixties, rock ’n’ roll had been the most prestigious form of popular music, beloved both by “rock critics” (the term itself suggested this bias) and by everyday fans, many of whom were inclined to accept the idea that mainstream pop music, no matter how much they loved it, was relatively inconsequential. The new pop revolution encouraged listeners of all sorts to question this hierarchy: to consider the possibility that rock ’n’ roll was boring, and that so-called pop music was the future.
Kelefa Sanneh (Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres)
Brahms is the first great musician in whom historical significance and artistic significance no longer converge as one and the same. He was not to blame for this. Rather it was the fault of his times. Even Beethoven’s most abnormal conceptions were born of the demands of his time and derived from the linguistic and expressive possibilities of that time. Although Beethoven’s will, a creative will so timeless and touched with insight into the future, was somehow in complete accordance with the will of his time; Beethoven was “sustained” by his time. Wagner’s boldest and most coherent works not only articulated the powerful personality of their creator, they revealed the will and possibilities of his time. There is a consonance between personal will and the general will of the time in Beethoven and Wagner, and later in Strauss, Reger, Debussy and Stravinsky. In Brahms, for the first time, these wills become separated; not because Brahms was most profoundly a man of his time, but because the musical possibilities of his time had taken a different direction from his own inclinations, and did not satisfy him. He is the first artist and creator who transcends his historical and musical function.
Sam H. Shirakawa (The Devil's Music Master: The Controversial Life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwängler)
Get off of me," I growled but he didn't, leaving Max and Caleb to go get rid of the assholes closing in on my girl. ... I shook my head and glanced away, catching a glimpse of Roxy and Caleb through the crowd but it was so brief that I couldn't get a read on how it was going. On the one hand I wanted him to convince her to join us again, but on the other I didn’t want her coming over here for his benefit. "What do you think he's saying to convince them to come over here?" Seth asked. "He's probably just saying 'come on, I'll buy you a drink then you can be my drink.'" "Roxy isn't into him biting her," I grunted. "Yet," Seth said, rolling his eyes at me. "Think about it, he's grabbing her all the time, his mouth on her neck, pinning her up against things. It's only a matter of time before he's slipping more than his teeth into her-" A growl escaped me and I shoved to my feet, done with waiting around for Caleb and Max to bring the girls to us. There was a good chance that there could be a Nymph hanging around here which meant I was supposed to be sticking close to the twins and that was exactly what I intended to do. In fact, I'd probably have to shove Caleb out of my way so that I could get closer and make sure he didn't accidentally put them in danger of having their magic stolen by a dark creature determined to destroy us all. He might even fall against a table and break his pretty nose. Doing so was basically me saving the whole of Solaria from the wrath of the creature in question though, so it was my duty to do it. But as I looked across the top of the crowd to where they'd all been standing just a few moments ago, I only found Max and Caleb there, no sign of the twins at all. I mouthed 'where are they?' to Max and he rolled his eyes before pointing to the dance floor. Roxy and her sister were in the centre of the floor, arms in the air and bodies moving to the beat of the music as countless Fae closed in on them from all sides, some of them seeming to have realised who they were while a few guys just seemed interested in them for reasons of their own. Or reasons of their dicks. No. No fucking way. I shoved away from the table and strode across the room, sensing Seth on my heels as he joined me in my Vega hunt. I made it to the dance floor and people backed away, giving us space as we strode through the crowd towards them. I fell still as we found them there, my intentions to drag them back over to our table whether they liked it or not falling away as my gaze found the movements of Roxy's body and fixed on them instead. Her eyes were closed, head tipped back and body moving to the seductive beat in a way that had me drawing closer automatically. I should have just been grabbing her and towing her away, but instead of doing that, my fingers brushed over her waist instead, the rough skin of my hands meeting the softness of her flesh beneath the hem of her shirt. She turned her head to look around at me, her eyes fluttering open and surprise filled her gaze for a moment, but I just held her eye and tugged her closer. Her blood red lips parted and I fully expected her to tell me to fuck off, but instead the barest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth and she inclined her head just a little as if to say okay. (Darius POV)
Caroline Peckham (The Awakening as Told by the Boys (Zodiac Academy, #1.5))
Rosemary took a deep breath and breathed out slowly, just like the online anxiety videos told her to do, though those had not specifically envisioned a situation where one was holding an old lamp in preparation for confrontation with the musically inclined axe-wielding serial killer that her imagination was busy fabricating.
Iris Beaglehole (Accidental Magic (Myrtlewood Mysteries, #1))
BARTON CENTRE, 912, 9th Floor, Mahatma Gandhi Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka - 560 001 Phone Number +91 8884400919 Situated off the southeast shore of Africa, Mauritius is a shocking island country in the Indian Sea known for its perfectly clear waters, white sandy sea shores, and lavish green scenes. The volcanic island flaunts pleasant coral reefs and a different scope of verdure. Culture and Language Mauritius is a mixture of societies, with impacts from Indian, African, Chinese, and European practices. Local people communicate in a blend of dialects, with English, French, Creole, and Hindi being ordinarily utilized. This social variety is reflected in the island's food, music, and celebrations. 2. Outline of Mauritius Visit Bundles Sorts of Visit Bundles Accessible Mauritius Tour Package From Bangalore offer various choices, from extravagant ocean side hotels to daring eco-the travel industry encounters. Whether you're searching for a heartfelt escape, a family get-away, or a performance experience, there's a bundle to suit each voyager's inclinations. Irregularity and Best Times to Visit The best opportunity to visit Mauritius is from May to December when the weather conditions is cooler and drier, ideal for investigating the island's attractions and appreciating outside exercises. Top vacationer season is from October to April, so reserving your visit bundle ahead of time is suggested. 3. Features of a Mauritius Tour Package From Bangalore Flight Subtleties and Travel Length Departures from Bangalore to Mauritius normally take around 7 to 8 hours, with non-stop flights accessible for a helpful travel insight. Some visit bundles might incorporate flight appointments and air terminal exchanges for a problem free excursion. Considerations and Prohibitions in the Bundle Normal considerations in Mauritius visit bundles are convenience, dinners, touring visits, and exercises, for example, water sports and spa medicines. Rejections might shift yet frequently incorporate travel protection, visa charges, and individual costs. 4. Convenience and Transportation Choices Well known Lodging Decisions in Mauritius Mauritius offers a scope of facilities, from extravagance resorts disregarding the sea to shop lodgings settled in tropical nurseries. Famous decisions remember ocean front pieces of land for Terrific Baie, extravagance withdraws in Beauty Female horse, and eco-accommodating hotels in Dark Waterway Canyons Public Park. Transportation inside Mauritius Transportation choices in Mauritius incorporate taxicabs, rental vehicles, and public transports for getting around the island. Many visit bundles give air terminal exchanges and may likewise incorporate confidential transportation for touring visits and journeys. 5. Energizing Exercises and Attractions in Mauritius Ocean side Exercises and Water Sports Mauritius is a heaven for ocean side darlings and daredevils the same. From lazing on the immaculate sandy sea shores to enjoying an assortment of water sports, for example, swimming, scuba jumping, and parasailing, there is no deficiency of energy here. Whether you're a carefully prepared surfer or a fledgling hoping to get a few waves, Mauritius offers something for everybody. Investigating Nature and Untamed life Nature fans will be in wonderment of Mauritius' different scenes, from lavish woods and cascades to shocking greenhouses. Investigate the Dark Stream Crevasses Public Park to detect extraordinary widely varied vegetation, or visit the Seven Shaded Earths in Chamarel for a characteristic miracle. Try not to botch the opportunity to experience monster turtles at the Île aux Aigrettes nature hold for a really remarkable encounter. 6. Test Schedule for a Mauritius Visit from Bangalore
Mauritius Tour Package From Bangalore
BARTON CENTRE, 912, 9th Floor, Mahatma Gandhi Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka - 560 001 Phone Number +91 8884400919 ### Uncover Sri Lanka's Enchantment: Your Upcoming Tropical Vacation Are you looking for the ideal tropical getaway with stunning scenery, a thriving culture, and a fascinating past? You need look no farther than a Surfnxt sri lanka tour package from bangalore. Known as the "Pearl of the Indian Sea," this island country tempts with its stunning regular excellence, cordial individuals, and various remarkable encounters. #### A Landscape Tapestry From immaculate beaches to verdant tea plantations and foggy mountainous areas, Sri Lanka is well known for its varied landscapes. Engaging in a tour from Bangalore allows you to fully experience the island's natural splendors. Explore the golden beaches of As you venture inland, you'll end up in the core of Sri Lanka's tea country. The picturesque slopes of Nuwara Eliya and Ella are covered with undulating green tea manors, making a postcard-wonderful background. Here, you can partake in a directed visit through a tea manufacturing plant and relish newly prepared Ceylon tea while looking at the shocking vistas. #### A Jump into History and Culture Past its shocking view, Sri Lanka is saturated with a rich social legacy that goes back millennia. The old city of Anuradhapura offers a brief look into the island's regal past with its very much safeguarded ruins and consecrated locales like the Sri Maha Bodhi tree, accepted to be the most seasoned living tree on the planet. Likewise, Polonnaruwa, the second capital of antiquated Sri Lanka, flaunts noteworthy archeological locales, including sanctuaries and sculptures that mirror the island's imaginative ability. Your Sri Lanka visit bundle will likewise incorporate the chance to encounter the nearby culture through customary moves, music, and culinary joys. Try not to miss attempting neighborhood top picks like containers, kottu roti, and the famous Sri Lankan curry, which burst with flavor and mirror the island's assorted culinary impacts. #### Special Untamed life Experiences Sri Lanka is a sanctuary for untamed life devotees. The island is home to a few public parks, including Yala and Udawalawe, where you can set out on an exhilarating safari. Spotting great elephants, panthers, and a heap of bird animal types is an elating encounter that couple of can stand up to. The opportunity to notice such heavenly animals right at home is really extraordinary. #### Consistent Travel from Bangalore sri lanka tour package from bangalore has never been more straightforward. With numerous flight choices, your tropical escape is only a couple of hours away. Entering an alternate world, with its accommodating local people and energetic business sectors, makes certain to be a reviving change from the hurrying around of city life. #### Your Process Is standing by With Surfnxt, you can modify your Sri Lanka visit bundle to accommodate your own inclinations, guaranteeing that each snapshot of your process is extraordinary. Whether you're looking for unwinding on flawless sea shores, experience in the mountains, or social advancement, Sri Lanka is the best objective for your next occasion. Enjoy the tranquility, experience, and appeal that look for you on this charming island. Prepare to investigate the sorcery of Sri Lanka — your tropical escape begins now!
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Perhaps no line of Cohen’s better captures the essence of his vision. He is telling his listeners what prophetically inclined rabbis have been telling theirs for thousands of years, namely that the world is a place of suffering, that no celestial cataclysm could ever change that, but that there are things here on this earth - art, love, friendship, kindness, music, sex - that have the power to redeem us.
Liel Leibovitz (A Broken Hallelujah: Rock and Roll, Redemption, and the Life of Leonard Cohen)
First, accord with what he likes in order to accommodate his wishes. He will eventually grow arrogant and invariably mount some perverse affair. If you can appear to follow along, you will certainly be able to eliminate him. "Second, become familiar with those he loves in order to fragment his awesomeness. When men have two different inclinations, their loyalty invariably declines. When his court no longer has any loyal ministers, the state altars will inevitably be endangered. "Third, covertly bribe his assistants, fostering a deep relationship with them. While they will bodily stand in his court, their emotions will be directed outside it. The state will certainly suffer harm. "Fourth, assist him in his licentiousness and indulgence in music in order to dissipate his will. Make him generous gifts of pearls and jade, and ply him with beautiful women. Speak deferentially, listen respectfully, follow his commands, and accord with him in everything. He will never imagine you might be in conflict with him. Our treacherous measures will then be settled.
Ralph D. Sawyer (The Seven Military Classics Of Ancient China (History and Warfare))
The legend of our times, it has been suggested, might be "The Revenge of Failure". This is what Envy has done for us. If we cannot paint well, we will destroy the canons of painting and pass ourselves off as painters. If we will not take the trouble to write poetry, we will destroy the rules of prosody and pass ourselves off as poets. If we are not inclined to the rigors of an academic discipline, we will destroy the standards of that discipline and pass ourselves off as graduates. If we cannot or will not read, we will say that "linear thought" is now irrelevant and so dispense with reading. If we cannot make music, we will simply make a noise and persuade others that it is music. If we can do nothing at all, why! we will strum a guitar all day, and call it self-expression. As long as no talent is required, no apprenticeship to a skill, everyone can do it, and we are all magically made equal. Envy has at least momentarily been appeased,and failure has had its revenge.
Henry Fairlie
… A wonderful collection of truths, and almost all are inconvenient’. ‘… Something here to offend everyone’. ‘… Everything from burlesque to parody, and with a sprinkling of serious commentary to confound the believers’. In the interest of balance however, here are some quotes from reviews which might have been written by others less inclined to view Heresies favorably. Again, I have undertaken this task on their behalf: “…a random assortment of schoolboy jokes. Possibly enjoyable for those who like juvenile humour – assuming they find it funny at all.” “The attempts at serious commentary are laughable, while the so-called heretical viewpoints are the unfunny fancies of a feeble mind.” “… Betrays an underlying resentment – disguised as ‘heresy’ – of those of eminence and achievement in music’s historical record.” Hmm. Can they all be right?
Patrick Brislan (Heresies of Music: An A-Z diagnostic guide)
As their ties to social, political, and religious institutions loosened, they could increasingly fashion their work solely according to the dictates of their own consciences. Beholden to no higher authority than their creative imagination, the progressive composer could experiment at will, following the inclination of the age to pursue the unique and unusual at the expense of the conventional and accepted. This new artistic freedom went hand in hand with the period's overall esthetic orientation, for the music was able to follow an independent course, without concern for the comprehension and receptivity of a broadly based public, the more it was able to serve as a vehicle for personal expression and to assume it's new role as a symbol of individuality or, eventually, of open revolt.
Robert P. Morgan (Twentieth-Century Music: A History of Musical Style in Modern Europe and America)
Of all radio program forms, the radio talk is the hardest to write, to give, and to make interesting and acceptable to the listening public. The first inclination of almost everyone, in turning on the radio and finding someone talking, is to switch the dial immediately until a music program is found. That is done almost as unconsciously as breathing.
Judith C. Waller (Radio: The Fifth Estate)
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Military expediency aside, how did the new emperor appear to his subjects? Experience, inclination and natural intelligence had made him a polymath, though the demands of his role as emperor, and the infinite resources available to him, left him open to accusations of dilettantism. This charge was unfair; he was unusual in that he genuinely wanted to become adept in many areas himself, rather than simply be served or amused by the ability of others. Throughout his reign his understanding was gained either by direct observation or by the development of skills that he admired in others. Poetry, architecture, music, philosophy and mathematics all intrigued him and he was patron of them all, surrounding himself with men of genius: the poet and satirist Juvenal, the architect Apollodorus, the historians Tacitus, Suetonius and Arrian, the writers Pliny the Younger, Pausanias and Plutarch.
Elizabeth Speller (Following Hadrian: A Second-Century Journey through the Roman Empire)
Doubtless there was discussion in the teachers’ common room about which sister the latest Spencer recruit to Poplar class would emulate, Sarah or Jane. It was a close run thing. Diana was in awe of her eldest sister but it wasn’t until later in life that she forged a close relationship with Jane. During their youth Jane was more likely to put her weight and invective behind brother Charles than her kid sister. Diana’s inevitable inclination was to imitate Sarah. During her first weeks she was noisy and disruptive in class. In an attempt to copy her sister Sarah’s exploits she accepted a challenge which nearly got her expelled. One evening her friends, reviewing the dwindling stocks of sweets in their tuck boxes, asked Diana to rendezvous with another girl at the end of the school drive and collect more supplies from her. It was a dare she accepted. As she walked down the treelined road in the pitch black she managed to suppress her fear of the dark. When she reached the school gate she discovered that there was no-one there. She waited. And she waited. When two police cars raced in through the school gates she hid behind a wall. Then she noticed the lights going on all over the school but thought no more about it. Finally she returned to her dorm, terrified not so much at the prospect of getting caught but because she had come back empty handed. As luck would have it a fellow pupil in Diana’s dormitory complained that she had appendicitis. As she was being examined, Diana’s teacher noticed the empty bed. The game was up. It was not just Diana who had to face the music but her parents as well. They were summoned to see Miss Rudge who took a dim view of the episode. Secretly Diana’s parents were amused that their dutiful but docile daughter had displayed such spirit. “I didn’t know you had it in you,” said her mother afterwards.
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
Life consisted of a few isolated flashes of existence, oases in a great wilderness of boredom. We live once perhaps in a week, sometimes perhaps in a year. I incline for the moment to the belief—it is in the Symposium almost—that Life is only a striving, to make two souls into one, to complete the bisected mystic circle. Each soul is but a half circle, there is somewhere its complement & we are all striving, searching to find the other half. Sometimes we find one that is almost—but not quite—the complement, the soul of a man or woman alive or the soul of a dead man living in music or poem—& there is a flash of soul fire & for a moment we live. But the flame dies down for the circle was not complete & then the old wandering in the wilderness of Boredom begins again. If only one could really complete the circle! Poets, artists & musicians are the happiest—for they create another soul out of their own & these two half circles—the old & the self-created souls—join & there is a flash that never dies down & they always live.
Leonard Woolf (Letters of Leonard Woolf)
In the symphonic world, musically inclined industrialists and financiers were having problems of a different sort with the New York Philharmonic. The old German cooperative presented only half a dozen concerts each year. As the orchestra couldn’t guarantee members full time work, they spent most of their time playing at balls and dances; hence their performances were less than highly polished, though much improved after Theodore Thomas was taken on as conductor. Neither their less than professional standards nor traditional repertoire bothered old-fashioned elites, but both failed to satisfy new tycoons. A capitalist combine including Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Morgan, and Carnegie underwrote a rival, the New York Symphony Orchestra (1878), another Leopold Damrosch project. Orchestra war ensued. In one notable sally Damrosch stole the American premiere of Brahms’s First Symphony from under Thomas’s nose.
Mike Wallace (Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898)
Besides being a writer, and in her spare time enjoying religious visions, she cranked out some pretty wicked music, which she intended that the sisters at the convent would sing at liturgical and other functions.
Nancy Kilpatrick (The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined)
The music we enjoy today is only possible because of polyphony.
Nancy Kilpatrick (The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined)
Lurking in roughly equal preeminence in humankind’s angst-ridden soul is an antipodal nature, a righteous persona manacled to an agathokakological creature. The species Homo sapiens creates art, literature, music, poetry, architecture, and developed mathematics and philosophy. This creature is also prone to homicide, equipped for rape and sadism, inclined towards religious violence and secular killings, and capable of torture and cannibalism.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
No need to fret about the circumstances of my station, it doesn't matter my trouble's inclination; all I need is a dark room, music and meditation, and trust that I can figure out any situation.
Renee' A. Lee
Carlo: Give you a sense of well-being. Do you think young children, young teenagers, actually, should be kept away from music like that? Ramirez: No, because I believe that a person that ... a person that is destined or inclined to be evil will be evil with or without music. Music I don’t believe has a part in anything. Carlo: Even young, impressionable minds? Ramirez: Yes, yes ... because I believe that it is the environment that will determine who a child will grow up to be.
Philip Carlo (The Night Stalker: The Disturbing Life and Chilling Crimes of Richard Ramirez)
And yet his sister was playing so beautifully. Her face was inclined to the side, and sadly and searchingly her eyes followed the columns of notes. Gregor crept a little closer and held his head close to the ground, so as to be prepared to meet her gaze. Could he be an animal, to be so moved by music? It was as though he sensed a way to the unknown sustenance he longed for.
Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis)
think this inclination artists have to bury what’s rough and not yet fully formed is a huge mistake. Fans want to witness the growth and maturation of the artists they love; they want to see the messy false starts, and they recognize that these early works are intended to be representative not of an artist’s entire output but a piece of it. And that piece—every piece—is essential to understanding and appreciating the whole. A body of work, no matter how masterful, is nothing without its individual parts.
Scott Bradlee (Outside the Jukebox: How I Turned My Vintage Music Obsession into My Dream Gig)
We sing more colored than the Africans,” boasted John Lennon, and few Americans were inclined to dispute him.
Margo Jefferson (Ripping Off Black Music (Singles Classic))
If only the schools had the time and energy to tailor the classwork to each kid's particular intelligence. If they took the time to develop a way to teach math to the kids that excelled in music and reading, and a way to teach literature and art to the ones for whom math was a natural inclination.
Flea
Artemis, the virgin huntress. It’s Greek. Think of her out on a moon yellow night, arrow notched taut in a bowstring and the taste of blood in her mouth. How seriously her parents considered the effect on destiny in the act of her naming, I don’t know. They had their pick of the pantheon. They could have called her Syrinx and had her running in terror from musically inclined men with hairy legs. She might have been more docile, vegetative even. But she would have had a tune to hum to herself then, high and reedy, remembering river banks. If they had called her Persephone they could have kept her, for half the year anyway, tending a fruitful garden. Though it is true that every fall her memory of them would drown in the icy River of Forgetfulness as she went into the underworld to live with her dreary husband, six bleeding pomegranate seeds glistening in his open palm. It might have been easier, for as it is she remembers nothing of them at all since they were forced to give her up for adoption when she was six months old. The name, which her adoptive parents decided to keep, thinking
Larissa Lai (When Fox is a Thousand)
in the sixty-four arts that noble ladies must know. I was given lessons in singing, dancing, and playing music. (The lessons were painful, both for my teachers and me, for I was not musically inclined, nor deft on my feet.)
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (The Palace of Illusions)
It was about six weeks before I left Madura for good that a great change in my life took place . It was quite sudden. I was sitting in a room on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden, violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it; and I did not try to account for it or to find out whether there was any reason for the fear. I just felt, ‘I am going to die,’ and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or my elders or friends. I felt that I had to solve the problem myself, then and there. The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word ‘I’ or any other word could be uttered, ‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body ‘I’? It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. This means I am the deathless Spirit.’ All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought-process. ‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centred on that ‘I’. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on. Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music, but the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti note that underlies and blends with all the other notes. Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else, I was still centred on ‘I’. Previous to that crisis I had no clear perception of my Self and was not consciously attracted to it. I felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it... One of the features of my new state was my changed attitude to the Meenakshi Temple. Formerly I used to go there occasionally with friends to look at the images and put the sacred ash and vermillion on my brow and would return home almost unmoved. But after the awakening I went there almost every evening. I used to go alone and stand motionless for a long time before an image of Siva or Meenakshi or Nataraja and the sixty-three saints, and as I stood there waves of emotion overwhelmed me.
Ramana Maharshi
He inclined his head, bowed slightly, then swept me up in the music. My feet seemed to move on their own. All I saw was Lucien’s smiling face and flashes of color as he twirled me around and around among the other dancers.
Deanna Chase (Bourbon Street Shorts (Jade Calhoun, #10))
In another duality, without doubt my pot smoking contributed to my inability to concentrate well, but also expanded the richness of my daydreaming world and informed my desire to find a freedom, one apart from the rigid competition of a public school education. If only the schools had the time and energy to tailor the classwork to each kid’s particular intelligence. If they took the time to develop a way to teach math to the kids that excelled in music and reading, and a way to teach literature and art to the ones for whom math was a natural inclination. Man, only the rich private school kids get that kind of love.
Flea (Acid for the Children: A Memoir)