I want to be famous everywhere.

People think I'm disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.

I think a life in music is a life beautifully spent, and this is what I have devoted my life to.

The rivalry is with ourself. I try to be better than is possible. I fight against myself, not against the other.

If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.

Music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion.

Some singers want the audience to love them. I love the audience.

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

You don't need any brains to listen to music.

As an art form, opera is a rare and remarkable creation. For me, it expresses aspects of the human drama that cannot be expressed in any other way, or certainly not as beautifully.

The happiest people in the world are those who give happiness to others.

When you get lost in the flow of life, find yourself in the fortress of God!

The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war.

I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors. I would rather start a family than finish one. Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

Nothing changes until it becomes what it is.

First of all, I'm not the kind of guy that likes to rehash the show and so forth and so on.

I love being around great actors and film-makers, and I try to hide the fact that I'm in awe of them.

The only way to not get criticized is to not do anything.

In every war at some point in time, you do sit down and negotiate.

When you write something it has to hit the level that you accept as being good.