Music of a Life Quotes

“As his hands fell upon the keyboard, it was still possible to believe a beautiful harmony had been formed at random, in spite of him. But a second later the music came surging out, the power of it sweeping away all doubts, voices, sounds, wiping away the fixed grins and exchanged glances, pushing back the walls, dispersing the light of the reception room out into the nocturnal immensity of the sky beyond the windows.

He did not feel as if he were playing. He was advancing through a night, breathing in its delicate transparency, made up as it was of an infinite number of facets of ice, of leaves, of wind. He no longer felt any pain. No fear about what would happen. No anguish or remorse. The night through which he was advancing expressed this pain, this fear, and the irremediable shattering of the past, but this had all become music and now only existed through its beauty.”
― Andreï Makine, Music of a Life

“their life will be made of the same stuff as this spring afternoon.”
― Andreï Makine, Music of a Life

“She was discovering one of the most intensely appealing aspects of love, that of making oneself obeyed, manipulating the other person and depriving him of his liberty with his own fervent consent.”
― Andreï Makine, Music of a Life

“sometimes by dint of rehearsing the intimate thrill of novelty can be lost, the tiny element of miracle or conjuring trick that art cannot do without. ‘You know, it’s like stage fright,’ she added. ‘If you don’t have it at all it’s a bad sign . . .”
― Andreï Makine, Music of a Life