Gordon Getty Quotes


"I've had every advantage in the world, despite the 18 years of silence which were nobody's fault but mine."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Fault, Silence, World, Years)

"When my opera Plump Jack was performed in 1989, my first piano teacher sent me something that I'd composed when I was four. I remember I played it, and it still sounded like me. I'm the same composer I was then."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: First, Opera)

"There is no change - I'm as deep or as shallow as I ever was. What's new is on-the-job experience. This is what you gain with years."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Change, Experience, Deep, Gain, Years)

"The Getty family has been fully supportive throughout this situation, and for that, I am very grateful."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Family)

"Nicolette, Kendalle, and Alexandra are my children. Their mother, Cynthia Beck, and I, love them very much."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Love, Mother, Children)

"My music is all about an idealistic human personality. I have 19th-century ideals."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Music, Ideals, Personality)

"My father was so much more than an accomplished businessman."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Father)

"It's true that I tend to daydream. I'm the same person in business as I am in music: I can be distracted and absentminded. It's my style."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Business, Style)

"If you have more money than you need, you have to give it away. It's a duty. I get to choose whom to sponsor, and I like to give to the areas that I know something about."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Money, Duty)

"I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Family, Music, Civilization, Ideas)

"Either your understanding of the meaning of music is there from the beginning or it is not."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Music, Beginning, Meaning, Understanding)

"I want to make the world better."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Want, World)

"Both parents were very encouraging - especially my father. My father thought the sun rose and set with me. Neither one had a musical background or any musical talent. They liked classical music, but neither could carry a tune."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Music, Father, Talent, Thought, Encouraging, Parents, Sun)

"I'm a terrible singer, but it helps when I have to call a taxi."
- Gordon Getty
"I do not think that music keeps evolving. It evolved through Bach; since then, in my humble opinion, all the innovations added nothing."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Music, Nothing, Opinion)

"I don't think events in your life affect your music."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Life, Music, Events)

"I feel that I belong to the 19th century. Some composers' music is very topical. It almost says, 'This is about what I read in newspapers yesterday.' Not mine."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Music, Composers, Newspapers, Yesterday)

"I just have to take my chances like any other composer."
- Gordon Getty
"I see only adaptations - not revolutions."
- Gordon Getty
"I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2,000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Poetry, English, Paris, Poems)