Erik Satie Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

Last year I gave several lectures on 'Intelligence and the Appreciation of Music Among Animals'. Today I am going to speak to you about 'Intelligence and the Appreciation of Music Among Critics'. The subject is very similar.

Erik Satie
Nothing but an icy loneliness that fills the head with emptiness and the heart with sadness.
About artist/model Suzanne Valadon at the end of their love affair

Erik Satie
The brain of the critic is like a shop, a big shop. Everything is to be found there: orthopaedics, science, bedding, arts, travelling rugs... The critic knows all, sees all, says all, hears all, touches all, stirs all, eats all, confuses all, and still keeps on thinking. What a man!!!

Erik Satie
I eat only white foods: eggs, sugar, grated bones, the fat of dead animals; veal, salt, coconut, chicken cooked in white water; fruit mold, rice, turnips; camphorated sausage, dough, cheese (white), cotton salad, and certain fish (skinless).

Erik Satie
I took to my room and let small things evolve slowly.

Erik Satie
Ravel refuses the Legion of Honour, but all his music accepts it.

Erik Satie
My doctor has always told me to smoke. To this advice he adds, "Smoke, my friend. If you don't, someone else will smoke in your place."

Erik Satie
When I was young, people used to say to me 'Wait until you're fifty, you'll see'. I am fifty. I haven't seen anything.

Erik Satie
The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest. It is he who invented the sublime art of ruining poetry.

Erik Satie
The exercise of an art demands that we live in a state of the most absolute renunciation.

Erik Satie
An artist can be imitated; the critic is inimitable, and priceless. How could you imitate a critic, I wonder? In any case, the attempt would be pointless. We have the original, and that is enough for us.

Erik Satie
The Artist is really just a dreamer; the critic, on the other hand, has a sense of reality, especially his own.

Erik Satie
Jazz speaks to us of its suffering and we don't give a damn. That's why it's beautiful, real...

Erik Satie
When all is said and done, ce bon Debussy was something else again than all the others put together.

Erik Satie
I love Ravel deeply, but his art leaves me cold, alas!

Erik Satie
Ravel [...] occupies a considerable place in modern music. I knew him as a child and have always taken an interest in his work. I confess to my shame—that I didn't think him capable of publicly acknowledging that he owes me a lot. I was very moved by it.

Erik Satie