Robert Fripp Quotes

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

Quiet is the absence of sound. Silence is the presence of silence.

If the audience doesn't hear what is going on, is it going on?

Usually people think that it is the musicians who create the music, but in fact it is music who creates the musicians.

What has changed in 40 years? It’s very simple: 40 years ago there was a market economy. Today there is a market society – today everything, including ethics, has a price.

A mistake is always forgivable, rarely excusable and always unacceptable.

Understanding is simple. Knowing is complicated.

I'm not really interested in music. Music is just a means of creating a magical state.

Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice.

We know others to the extent that we know ourselves.

Expectation closes the door to what is happening in the moment.

When music appears which only King Crimson can play, then, sooner or later, King Crimson appears to play the music.

There are no mistakes, save one: the failure to learn from a mistake.

Music is the cup that holds the wine of silence. Sound is that cup, but empty. Noise is that cup, but broken.

My life as a professional musician is a joyless exercise in futility.

I recommend my students not to be professional unless they really have to be. I tell them, 'If you love music, sell Hoovers or be a plumber. Do something useful with your life.'

Me and a book is a party. Me and a book and a cup of coffee is an orgy.

Music never goes away. It is always available, but we're not always available for music.

What we hear is the quality of our listening.

According to USA today, the average length of an attention span of a man in America is 23 minutes.

Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end.

When a record company makes a mistake, the artist pays for it. When a manager makes a mistake, the artist pays for it. When the artist makes a mistake, the artist pays for it.

However, in modern conceptual frameworks there is a more sophisticated view. I would say that the act of music exists in several worlds simultaneously.

The spoken form is in fact a very restrained representation of what is possible in the musical language.

But above that, most mature adults can hold their attention on something for 45 minutes, whether they like it or not. But above that requires training.

Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence.

Beginner's luck is great for beginners.

The science is in knowing; the art in perceiving.

To me, Bill's musical heart is in Earthworks, in the jazz they are playing, in the acoustic kit.

And if you are playing in several meters at once, there has to be a - not a rigid - but there definitely has to be a reference to a common pulse in the band.

I couldn't concentrate on music. So I made the choice to give up my career as a musician in the frontline to deal with the business.

Then certainly for a musician timing becomes something that is immediately accessible as a concept, because it's a necessity in ones everyday performance.

Music can be transformative, utterly transformative. The act of music is utterly transformative.

Purely by hard work, one can become an artist.

The quality of artistry is the capacity to assume innocence at will, the quality of experiencing innocence as if for the first time.

The aim is freedom conscience and truth

There is a difference between being a timekeeper and keeping the pulse or being in step with the pulse in the band.

If an apprentice does not hear what a master hears, is then that quality not present in the music? Yes and no. In the world in which the apprentice lives no.

What is necessary is possible, what we want is expensive. What is unnecessary is unlikely.

Linguistic philosophers continue to argue that probably music is not a language, that is in the philosophical debate. Another point of view is to say that music is a very profound language.

If you are playing repertoire material, you're stuck. There's not huge amounts you can do.

Business logic and musical logic are utterly incompatible.

Performance is a vehicle for entering different worlds of experiencing.

The concern of the musician is to play the music. It is there demanding to be given sound to.

Use your ears to record and your eyes to video.

My life has improved so much since I stopped doing interviews.