I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don't succeed, I consider it my own fault.

When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.

Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward.

If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.

I write music, it’s performed. After all, my music says it all. It doesn’t need historical and hysterical commentaries. In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.

In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.

I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin's orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.

It's about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.

The most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on to the fugue.

There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

With my son, I work very hard to keep him away from the press and media and I want an opportunity for him to lead as normal a life as possible.

I had been tricked once by that Cheat called love, but the Game was over.

There is no art when one does something without intention.

The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of diseases

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

She's not your type. Since when do I have a type?

I really believe that you never stop learning.

Somehow, talking to young students brings you back to reality - it should, anyway.