Top 11 George Gershwin Quotes

I like to think of music as an emotional science.

An entire composition written in jazz could not live.

When jazz is played in another nation, it is called American. When it is played in another country, it sounds false. Jazz is the result of the energy stored up in America.

A skyscraper is at the same time a triumph of the machine and a tremendous emotional experience, almost breath-taking. Not merely its height but its mass and proportions are the result of an emotion, as well as of calculation.

Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas.

Modern European composers ... have very largely received their stimulus, their rhythms and impulses from Machine Age America. They have a much older tradition of musical technique which has helped them put into musical terms a little more clearly the thoughts that originated here. They can express themselves more glibly.

Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music.

The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself…Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel.

My people are American, my time is today…music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times.

I frequently hear music in the heart of noise.

The European boys have small ideas but they sure know how to dress 'em up.