Quotes on

wit

9 quotes

Tell him there is measure in everything and so dance out the answer.

William ShakespeareMuch Ado About Nothing

Asked what it takes to sing Wagner's Isolde

Comfortable shoes.

Birgit NilssonWidely reported reply when asked the chief requirement for singing Isolde

A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it.

Thomas BeechamH. Proctor-Gregg, Beecham Remembered, pt 2, p. 154, 1976

Asked, when filling in her tax return, whether she had any dependants

Yes – Rudolf Bing.

Birgit NilssonAs reported in her Guardian obituary (Frank Granville Barker and Alan Blyth, January 2006)

On the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras

If I tell the Berliners to step forward, they do it. If I tell the Viennese to step forward, they do it, but then they ask why.

Herbert von KarajanBrian Moynahan, 'Funeral in Berlin', The Sunday Times, 30 January 1983; in Norman Lebrecht, The Book of Musical Anecdotes

Spoken by Algernon

You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

Oscar WildeThe Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Act I

Spoken by Dorian Gray

I never talk during music – at least, during good music. If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.

Oscar WildeThe Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter 4

There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.

Thomas BeechamHarold Atkins and Archie Newman, Beecham Stories, p. 27, 1978

Spoken by Lady Henry

I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says.

Oscar WildeThe Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter 4