Alex Ross Quotes

“One day in 1948 or 1949, the Brentwood County Mart, a shopping complex in an upscale neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, was the scene of a slight disturbance that carried overtones of the most spectacular upheaval in twientieth-century music. Marta Feuchtwanger, wife of émigré novelist Lion Feuchtwanger, was examining grapefruit in the produce section when she heard a voice shouting German from the far end of the aisle. She looked up to see Arnold Schoenberg, the pioneer of atonal music and the codifier of twelve-tone composition, bearing down on her, with his bald pate and burning eyes. Decades later, in conversation with the writer Lawrence Weschler, Feuchtwanger could recall every detail of the encounter, including the weight of the grapefruit in her hand. “Lies, Frau Marta, lies!” Schoenberg was yelling. “You have to know, I never had syphilis!”

“Whoever is free from prejudice should be ready to face misunderstanding.”

“Talented person is talented everywhere.”

“A dog might feel as majestic as a lion, might bark as loud as a roar, might have a heart as mighty and brave as a Lion's heart,But at the end of the day, a dog is a dog and a lion is a lion.”

“Our route toward spiritual evolution is radiantly clear. We all have our own unique individual journey to walk toward enlightenment. Living on the brink of evolutionary change means that new ground is being broken and new consciousness is being raised. Truth is of the essence – we have no dogma, no set formula, no prescribed rules, no false standards to follow. All we have is the truth within our souls. I believe most of us want to follow the light, the path of healing and not destroying our earth, but we don't have the courage, the lion heart, to follow our individual truth toward enlightenment. Giving in to our fears, we bury our “gold” beneath the false value systems of our societies, and we attempt to comfort ourselves with the notion that we have no power or responsibility for what is happening to our world. The reality is that, potentially, we all have the power of light – the White Lion – within us. The very first step is to overcome our fears. Thereafter, our hearts will lead the way.”

“As we neared the watering hole, I saw lions sprawled at the base of the acacia tree, relaxing in the shade. Many, many lions. If a group of lions is normally called a pride, then this was, at the very least, an overconfidence. Possibly an arrogance.”

“If you could cross a lion and a monkey, that's what I'd be, because monkeys are funny and lions are strong.”

“With each new day in Africa, a gazelle wakes up knowing he must outrun the fastest lion or perish. At the same time, a lion stirs and stretches, knowing he must outrun the fastest gazelle or starve. It's no different for the human race. Whether you consider yourself a gazelle or a lion, you have to run faster than others to survive.”

“It is no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.”

“If a lion kills a gazelle, the Universe does not judge the lion as evil and the gazelle as good. The energy and matter of the gazelle is transferred to the lion. Because we are all connected as one, what appears to be death is in fact transformation and rebirth.”