Quotations

"The best compliment to a child or a friend is the feeling you give him that he has been set free to make his own inquiries, to come to conclusions that are right for him, whether or not they coincide with your own."

— Alistair Cooke, English-American journalist, born 1908

"I find I'm luckier when I work harder."

— Denton Cooley, American heart surgeon, born 1920

"Fantasy mirrors desire, imagination reshapes it."

— Mason Cooley, American aphorist, born 1927

"When I sang that song, I felt it was almost as if some force had moved into my body. Things like that have only happened to me singing jazz. It doesn't happen when singing pop. I get so deeply into the music, it feels like I've become someone else."

— Rita Coolidge, American singer, born 1945

"On stage, I'm this figure, this actor, who does things that people aren't used to seeing and I relish in that reaction. In real life, though, I play golf, I shop and I walk around with no makeup on and my hair in a ponytail. I may not be the typical middle-aged Joe, but I'm closer to normal than you think."

— Alice Cooper, American rock singer, born 1948

"Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that's a tough call. That's rebellion."

— Alice Cooper, American rock singer, born 1948

"I don't have much experience, but the few times when I would go on a date with a girl - like when I was 12 - there was a lot of sharing, and a lot of talking, and a lot of asking how I am. They thought we were dating, and I was sort of hoping to meet their brothers."

— Anderson Cooper, American journalist, born 1967

"For if my poems have always been about survival--and I believe they have been--then survival too keeps revealing itself as an art of the unexpected."

— Jane Cooper, American poet, born 1924

"Possibly I've become less funny as I've been happier."

— Wendy Cope, English poet, born 1945

"Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe."

— Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer, born 1473

"The earth together with its surrounding waters must in fact have such a shape as its shadow reveals, for it eclipses the moon with the arc of a perfect circle."

— Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer, born 1473

"Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes."

— Aaron Copland, American composer, born 1900

"For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it--even of my own music--with the same nuances forever."

— Aaron Copland, American composer, born 1900

"Mozart in his music was probably the most reasonable of the world's great composers. It is the happy balance between flight and control, between sensibility and self-discipline, simplicity and sophistication of style that is his particular province... Mozart tapped once again the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breath-taking rightness that has never since been duplicated."

— Aaron Copland, American composer, born 1900