Robert Fripp Quotes

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

Purely by hard work, one can become an artist.

That certain feeling happened to me in a big way quite often with the first King Crimson. Amazing things would happen-I mean, telepathy, qualities of energy, things that I had never experienced before with music. You can't tell whether the music is playing the musician or the musician is playing the music.

Performance is a vehicle for entering different worlds of experiencing.

So, you can set up an orchestra down this end of the railway station playing one particular area, and simultaneously at the other end something completely different going on. And in the middle they meet, or not, depending.

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

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

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

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.

In terms of an identity, an identity reflects an individuality, by definition. And, if there is a quality present, it is recognizable and it can be named. If you can't name it, it means you don't recognize it.

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.

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

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

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.

I continue to explain that plot inconsistencies in B movies are consistent, and should not be allowed to undermine one's enjoyment of the action, nor the fundamental credibility of the storyline: the good & bad guys are clearly delineated & easily recognizable, the hero duffs over the baddies, things blow up loudly & spectacularly, the good guy wins. Entirely credible.

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

I would like, with the sun shining through the window on a crisp early-autumnal mid-morning, with a sufficiency of Monster Cappucino flowing in my veins to prompt minimal sentience, to declare my view for the record that Drummer Jokes are a cruel and pernicious form of humour introduced to the world by under-humoured persons lacking in sensitivity and concern for other drummers.

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

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

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

The way we describe our world shows how we think of our world. How we think of our world governs how we interpret our world. How we interpret our world directs how we participate in the world. How we participate in the world shapes the world.

Beginner's luck is great for beginners.

What we hear is the quality of our listening.

The creative musician ... is ... the radio receiver, not the broadcasting station. His personal discipline is to improve the quality of the components, the transistors, the speakers, the alloys in the receiver itself, but never to concern himself overmuch with putting out the program. The program is there; all he has to do is receive it as far as possible.

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.

The plot details of B movies are irrational: accept that people do things that are contradictory, against their own best interests, have short term aims & limited attention span, and do incredibly stupid things while things blow up. Apart from things blowing up, this is just like the music industry.

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

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.

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

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

Use your ears to record and your eyes to video.

The aim is freedom conscience and truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Business logic and musical logic are utterly incompatible.

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.

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.'