Jerome Kern Quotations

I write music to both the situations and the lyrics in plays.

Cartoonist Walt Disney has made the twentieth century's only important contribution to music. Disney has made use of music as language.

The fact that the theatregoing public likes my music is no credit to me. There are many other composers who write better music that the public doesn't like.

Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music. Emotionally, he honestly absorbs the vibrations emanating from the people, manners and life of his time and, in turn, gives these impressions back to the world -- simplified, clarified and glorified.

Go on being uncommercial. There's a lot of money in it.

Musical numbers should carry the action of the play and should be representative of the personalities of the characters who sing them.

Irving Berlin has no place in American music -- he is American music.