My music teacher offered twittering madrigals and something about how, in Italy, in Italy, the oranges hang on the tree. He treated me - the humiliation of it - as a soprano. These, by contrast, are the six elements of a Sacred Harp alto: rage, darkness, motherhood, earth, malice, and sex. Once you feel it, you can always do it. You know where to go for it, though it will cost you. Mary Rose OReilley
About This Quote

The story is about a man who was inspired to write the words after he heard a woman sing at a concert. He was fascinated by her voice and how it seemed to embody all of the feelings that he had been unable to express in his own life. He began writing his story from the point of view of this woman's Music Teacher who had the same name as the writer. The characters in this story are based on real people that the author has known. In fact, each line in this story is a quote from one of the characters in his life. The main character for this story is based on a friend of the author's who is currently going through a divorce. The music teacher, however, is based on a Music Teacher that he had while he was still in school.

Source: The Barn At The End Of The World: The Apprenticeship Of A Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd

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More Quotes By Mary Rose OReilley
  1. I would not have majored in English and gone on to teach literature had I not been able to construct a counterargument about the truthfulness of fiction; still, as writers turn away from the industrious villages of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, I learn less...
  2. One night I begged Robin, a scientist by training, to watch Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' with me on PBS. He lasted about one act, then turned to me in horror: 'This is how you spend your days? Thinking about things like this?' I...
  3. On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked...
  4. I would not say I am looking for God. Or, I am not looking for God precisely. I am not seeking the God I learned about as a Catholic child, as an 18-year-old novice in a religious community, as an agnostic graduate student, as -...
  5. I was only beginning to enter into the infinite subtlety of Gregorian chant. It was - and remains - the only public prayer I have ever been able to engage in without feeling like a phony and a jackass. But then, one day in 1965...
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