Whether you’ve spent hours practicing for a concert performance or simply enjoy countless replays of Debussy’s greatest works, all piano lovers share an appreciation for the beautiful instrument.
At Lindeblad Piano Restoration, our company story began four generations ago with a simple ambition to tune and repair pianos driven by a love for music. We’ve compiled some of our favorite quotes that highlight the various aspects of a piano lover’s enjoyment of the stringed instrument:
Funny Piano Quotes
1. “I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.” ― Edith Sitwell
2. “The public is like a piano. You just have to know what keys to poke.” – Al Capp
3. “What has keys but can’t listen to the beauty it unlocks? A piano. ” – Jarod Kintz
4. “The piano is a monster that screams when you touch its teeth.” – Andre Segovia
5. "There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." – Johann Sebastian Bach
Piano Quotes By Artists & Composers
6. “One of my biggest thrills for me still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen.” – Paul McCartney
7. “I’m an interpreter of stories. When I perform it’s like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy tales.” – Nat King Cole
8. “I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.” – Chopin
9. “I’m able to sometimes express things even more articulately on the piano than I am with singing.” – Harry Connick Jr.
10. “When I had nothing else, I had my mother and the piano. And you know what? They were all I needed.” – Alicia Keys
Piano Quotes About Life & Love
11. “If life was a piano light and darkness would be the keys. And shadows would be the melody that creates the harmony.” ― Joe Rodriguez
12. “There are eighty-eight keys on a piano and within that, an entire universe.” ― James Rhodes
13. “Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.” – Tom Lehrer
14. “I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” – Albert Einstein
15. “Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano.” – Frederic Chopin
Philosophical Piano Quotes
16. “The piano's world encompasses glass-nerved virtuosi and stomping barrel-housers in fedoras; it is a world of pasture and storm, of perfumed smoke, of liquid mathematics.” – Kenneth Miller
17. "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." – Plato
18. "I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea." – Oscar Peterson
19. "The piano is able to communicate the subtlest universal truths by means of wood, metal and vibrating air." – Kenneth Miller
20. "The piano as a medium for expression is a whole world by itself. No other instrument can fill or replace its own say in the world of emotion, sentiment, poetry, imagery and fancy" – Leopold Godowsky
Inspirational Piano Quo
21. “When you play, never mind who listens to you.” ― Robert Schumann
22. “Without a piano I don’t know how to stand, don’t know what to do with my hands.” – Norah Jones
23. “The important thing is to feel your music, really feel it and believe it.” – Ray Charles
24. “The best players are on the bench.” – Anonymous Unknown
25. “I’ll probably paint on this piano after I compose, for that will inspire me to make more awesome works.” ― Shawn Lukas
Quotes About Pianos In Literature
26. “PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.” – Ambrose Bierce
27. “Pianos, unlike people, sing when you give them your every growl. They know how to dive into the pit of your stomach and harmonize with your roars when you’ve split yourself open. And when they see you, guts shining, brain pulsing, heart right there exposed in a rhythm that beats need need, need need, need need, pianos do not run. And so she plays.” ― Francesca Lia Block, Love Magick
28. “As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from one end of the keyboard to the other without a stop.” ― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
29. “Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” – Wassily Kandinsky
30. “A woman sings at the piano, and the poet is carried back to his childhood.” – DH Lawrence
Does one or more of these quotes resonate with you? Or do you have a favorite piano quote we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you!
