After the last notes of Gotterdammerung I felt as though I had been let out of prison.

Music is an incomparably more powerful means and is a subtler language for expressing the thousand different moments of the soul's moods.

Where the heart does not enter; there can be no music.

To regret the past, to hope in the future, and never to be satisfied with the present: that is what I spend my whole life doing

Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music.

Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.

Madam, you ask me how I compose. I compose sitting down.

Music possesses much richer means of expression and it is a more subtle medium for translating the 1000 shifting moments of the feelings of the soul.

I like the plot of The Nutcracker - not at all.

The creative process is like music which takes root with extraordinary force and rapidity

What I need is to believe in myself again — for my faith has been greatly undermined; it seems to me my role is over.

Love to live, live to love—nothing else matters.

A successful man is like a bottle of wine, just gets better with age.

Sometimes the best gain is to lose.

When I was 12 and met my real father for the first time, I was terrified I would lose the one I already had.

We are always saying to ourself.. we have to innovate. We got to come up with that breakthrough... we're only paid for breakthroughs.

To be a poet did not occur to me. It was indeed a threshold guarded by demons.

Go out and walk. That is the glory of life.

Behind every dark cloud there is an every-shining sun. Just wait. In time, the cloud will pass.

The reason some younger women were willing to go out with my flabby, ageing self was that no one of their own age would put up with them for more than 10 minutes.

It was like orderin a hamburger and getting only the buns