Above all things, I must not get angry. If I do get angry I knock all the teeth out of the mouth of the poor wretch who has angered me.

Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife.

Anyone who loves music can never be quite unhappy.

My compositions spring from my sorrows. Those that give the world the greatest delight were born of my deepest griefs.

When I wished to sing of love, it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow, it was transformed for me into love.

You believe happiness to be derived from the place in which once you have been happy, but in truth it is centered in ourselves.

Every night when I go to bed, I hope that I may never wake again, and every morning renews my grief.

No one feels another's grief, no one understands another's joy. People imagine they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by.

I am composing like a god, as if it simply had to be done as it has been done.

Easy mind, light heart. A mind that is too easy hides a heart that is too heavy.

O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life you have left in our souls!

When there's nothing left to save, there's nothing left to lose.

Happy wife, happy life. I think every man learns that quick. Really quick.

Liquor prohibition led to the rise of organized crime in America, and drug prohibition has led to the rise of the gang problems we have now.

We don't trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation.

I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of our enemies' designs.

A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after.

When you've got eight or nine or ten cables running around with someone trying to operate them, it's too much.

We program the festival, after 20 years, exactly the way we did on the first day.

Our relationship with Nature... best way of forging this relationship... be a pilgrim and not a tourist on Planet Earth

I was a victim; I don't dwell on it.