Talk:Victor Borge

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• (Referring to the piano's natural shape) Isn't it a shame when those big fat opera singers lean against the pianos and bend them?
• I love this piano... I get about 4 sonatas to a gallon of red wine on it...
• ... Very expensive these pianos... It's not mine! But they come in a six pack!
• I have been looking forward to this evening's performance ever since... 7:30... two weeks ago.
• I'd like to thank my parents for making this night possible. And my children for making it necessary.
• I normally don't do requests. Unless, of course, I have been asked to do so.
• I don't mind growing old. I'm just not used to it.
• Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
• Occasionally, a finger comes up to wipe a tear [of laughter] from the eye... and that's my reward... the rest goes to the government.
• The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.
• When you go home, please drive home extremely carefully. Extremely carefully. Because I walk in my sleep!
• Giuseppe Verdi. Joe Green to you.
• I'm going to play it with both hands so that way I will get through with it a little faster.
• I'm Lou Borg.
• You may not be aware of this but Leonard Bernstein won another award, for explaining the music of Igor Stravinsky... to Igor Stravinsky!
• There will be no dancing during this number... unless you absolutely have to!
• I'm going to play a piece...by a Danish composer. Umm... Mozart. Hans Christian Mozart!
• (Holding someone's red tie) Oh, I thought you were bleeding.
• We have a neighbour. Well, who doesn't... but he's our next window neighbour, because he does not have a door at that end of the house!
• My grandfather gave me this watch...a few minutes before he died...for 20 bucks...plus tax...
• The soprano... is about four and a half feet tall... Lying down.
• And now, Brahms! Joey Brahms! ...Brahms spelled backwards: "Smharb."
• One afternoon, when I was four years old, my father came home, and he found me in the living room in front of a roaring fire, which made him very angry. Because we didn't have a fireplace.
• Before we start, the Baldwin Piano Company has asked me to say that this is a Steinway piano [or vice versa].
• (Inspecting the piano) Hmmm… Steinway & Sons. Didn't even know he was married.
• Ignaz Friedman's dead now—I sincerely hope, because they buried him about 28 years ago.
• There are three Bachs. Johann, Sebastian and Offen.
• It's Fliszt, not F. Liszt. You don't say M. Ozart?
• It is important to always, always fasten your seat belt wherever you play.
• Pardon me madam, are you laying eggs? (Spoken to a woman who cackled when she laughed in "Page-Turner")
• (Responding to a sneeze from the audience) Who exploded?
• This week, we will be celebrating my grandfather's 100th birthday. <audience applause> Unfortunately, he won't be present.
• And now, in honour of the 150th anniversary of Beethoven's death, I would like to play "Clear the Saloon", er, "Clair de Lune", by Debussy. I don't play Beethoven so well, but I play Debussy very badly, and Beethoven would have liked that.
• [In a lecture on Mozart's Magic Flute]"...and after that the Chorus comes in...nobody knows WHY...besides Mozart of course...and he's dead."
• [After making a usage, grammar error, etc.] Hey, it's your language, I'm just trying to use it."
• Pardon me for sitting down while I play.
• Pete (Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky) was born in Votkinsk, May 7, 1840. When he was a little boy he never played out in the streets of Votkinsk like the other little children of Votkinsk because when Tchaikovsky was one month old his parents moved to St. Petersburg.
• Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.
• [Sits at piano facing sideways on stage. Turns to audience behind him.] Pardon my back... To those of you on the other side, pardon my front.
• Santa Claus has the right idea - visit people only once a year.
• You run the lights? That's against the law. (Responded to his son who said "I run the lights," in "Page-Turner")
• This cello can be used to pick up papers at the park. You will see now, at the bottom. (Pointing at the endpin of the cello while the player is poking the cello at the ground)
• (Replying to someone who coughed in the audience) Was that Rimsky-Korsakov?
• I'll play Chopin's polonaise if I could. and I can, but I won't, why should I play Chopin's polonaise, will Chopin play my polonaise?
• I have often been asked to play a number all the way through. But I'm delighted to tell you that I'm not going to do that. There are two reasons for it. First, I don't know anything all the way through. And this happens to be the other reason also.
• This is a sonata written for four hands, but it is never played because they cannot find someone with 4 hands. Today i'm gonna play it with my two hands, which makes it twice as long, but i'm gonna play it twice as fast.

My Favorite Intermissions

I checked out 1971's My Favorite intermissions, written with Robert Sherman, in the hope it might contain some of the well-known lines. Instead, it's a collection of anecdotes and stories about famous composers and their works. So far as I can tell it's completely factual although told in Borge's jaunty tone. It's nicely written for what it is, and might make a nice gift for a music lover, but I don't see a compelling reason to quote any of it here.   Will Beback  talk  10:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)