Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.

You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.

The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.

A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.

But it's peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.

I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.

If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster.

Existential philosophy, poetry and art - just like sadness - were all unavoidable to a tender young man in the meat works.

In 1980 I finished three or four times in seventh place.

If a house is priced appropriately, make a bid 10 percent below that amount.

I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.

Whatever the majority of people is doing, under any given circumstances, if you do the exact opposite, you will probably never make another mistake as long as you live.

They pulled Resurrection out of the theatres, so it was running in New York and I was nominated for the Oscar and there was no ad in the newspapers to say it was running. So it was literally killed.

When something is staring you in the face in your life and you see it with your own two eyes and feel it within your heart only a fool doesn't believe it to be true.

The tragic hero prefers death to prudence. The comedian prefers playing tricks to winning. Only the villain really plays to win.

You want me to act like we've never kissed, you want to forget; pretend we've never met , and I've tried and I've tried, but I haven't yet... You walk by, and I fall to pieces.

Let life be short, else shame will be too long.