Intonation Quotes

• A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Book, Axes, Isolated

  Jorge Luis Borges, Donald A. Yates, James East Irby (1964). “Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings”, p.214, New Directions Publishing

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• The obvious priority is to get your intonation together. Your sound and your pitch should be inspiring to people, not a distraction.

  John Patitucci

  People, Priorities, Together

  "Fretless Questions: John Patitucci". Fretlessbass Interview, fretlessbass.com. September 25, 2006.

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• You might say that certain words are only pegs to hang intonations on.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Might, Certain, Peg

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1974). “Philosophical Grammar: Part I, The Proposition, and Its Sense, Part II, On Logic and Mathematics”, p.66, Univ of California Press

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• Color is life, for a world without color seems dead. As a flame produces light, light produces color. As intonation lends color to the spoken word, color lends spiritually realized sound to a form.

  Johannes Itten

  Light, Flames, Color

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• Saying you love something out loud with the wrong intonation in your face can damn you and destroy what you're working on.

  Jack White

  Damn You, Faces, Your Face

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• It's the periods and the commas that you have to forget about. The words never change, but the intonations change.

  Martin McDonagh

  Forget, Never Change, Periods

  Source: collider.com

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• Our intonations contain our philosophy of life, what each of us is constantly telling himself about things.

  Marcel Proust

  Philosophy, Life Philosophy

  Marcel Proust (1948). “The Maxims of Marcel Proust”

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• Intonation is important, especially when it is cold.

  Eugene Ormandy

  Important, Cold

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• It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Different, May, Metaphor

  Jorge Luis Borges (1964). “Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings”, p.192, New Directions Publishing

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• Laughter is the mind's intonation. There are ways of laughing which have the sound of counterfeit coins.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Laughter, Laughing, Mind

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• Of course the most difficult thing on the violin is always intonation. The second one is rhythm. If you play in tune, in time with a good sound that's already high level. Those three are the main things.

  Ruggiero Ricci

  Play, Violin, Sound

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• A lot of cats in New Orleans, very soulful, very soulful musicians and they assume that they're singers. And they just make that assumption. And so when there's a little intonation problem, people are very forgiving of them because they heard how soulful they play.

  Wendell Pierce

  Cat, New Orleans, Play

  "Wendell Pierce: Everyone's Favorite Fake Trombone Player". Interview with Patrick Jarenwattananon, www.npr.org. July 4, 2011.

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• The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.

  Stan Getz

  Challenges, Body, Saxophone

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• There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. And the reason I'm feeling that is more because on your breathing and your intonation than the actual words.

  Arca

  Frustration, Breathing, Feelings

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• On matters of intonation and technicalities I am more than a martinet - I am a martinetissimo.

  Leopold Stokowski

  Matter, Technicalities

  Leopold Stokowski's statement recalled in obituaries (September 13, 1977), as quoted in "Simpson's Contemporary Quotations" compiled by James B. Simpson, 1988.

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• I never write. Never! I do not even remember if I can write … This is a true freestyle in general. I put a beat, I said some stuff, I retain ideas, I do it again, with a particular intonation, I test, and especially I record live.

  Young Thug

  Writing, Ideas, Records

  "We Translated Young Thug’s French Interview So You Don’t Have To" by Carl Lamarre, theurbandaily.cassiuslife.com. September 8, 2015.

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• What is or is not the jargon is determined by whether the word is written in an intonation which places it transcendently in opposition to its own meaning; by whether the individual words are loaded at the expense of the sentence, its propositional force, and the thought content.

  Theodor Adorno

  Jargon, Determined, Individual

  Theodor W. Adorno (2003). “Adorno”, p.5, Psychology Press

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• "I've learned what's funny verbally ain't so funny on e-mail: They don't hear your intonations. Melissa broke up with somebody over that. She tried to tell him: "That was a joke!" But he just didn't get it. Mick Jagger said, "F- 'em if they don't get the joke." And I love him. That comes with age: Knowing it's their problem, not mine."

  Joan Rivers

  Humor, I Love Him, Knowing

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• People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it's quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations with each passing moment. A single hour can consist of thousands of different colors. Waxy yellows, cloud-spot blues. Murky darkness. In my line of work, I make it a point to notice them.

  Markus Zusak

  Passing Moments, Clouds, Color

  Markus Zusak (2013). “The Book Thief: Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition”, p.4, RH Childrens Books

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• I had a really fantastic dialect coach that I worked very well with, and I was constantly surprised by the different intonations that the Russian dialect has.

  Andrew Scott

  Dialect Coach, Different, Fantastic

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• Certainly, the history of my life and the works of art which have especially enriched it is precisely that: the depiction or incantation of a handful of metaphors whose spendour rests upon their intonation.

  Michael Ayrton

  Art, Metaphor, Depiction

  Michael Ayrton (1971). “The Rudiments of Paradise: Various Essays on Various Arts”

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• I love Emmylou Harris's version of my song, 'Sweet Old World.' Her intonation is great.

  Lucinda Williams

  Song, Sweet, World

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• There is no earthly reason why a solo string instrument or voice, having the possibility to play or sing pure intonation, should want, or try, to be tempered.

  Lara St. John

  Play, Voice, Trying

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• Just as a prayer may be merely a mechanical intonation as of a bird, so may a fast be a mere mechanical torture of the flesh.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Prayer, Bird, May

  Mahatma Gandhi, Judith M. Brown (2008). “The Essential Writings”, p.364, Oxford University Press

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• With iron and blood, it seems, and from the rich depths of the earth, John Griswold has fashioned a classic American novel, its dignified intonations of our young nation's sweat and tears evocative of the indelible storytelling of Dos Passos, Frank Norris, and Upton Sinclair.

  Bob Shacochis

  Blood, Sweat, Iron

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