If you want to please the critics, don't play too loud, too soft, too fast, too slow.

Can't you read? The score demands 'con amore,' and what are you doing? You are playing it like married men!

To Strauss the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again.

I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. I haven't had time for tobacco since.

After I die, I shall return to earth as a gatekeeper of a bordello and I won't let any of you enter.

God tells me how the music should sound, but you stand in the way.

I hate you all because you destroy my dreams!

When I was very young I kissed my first woman and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. Believe me never since have I wasted any more time on tobacco.

God tells me how he wants the music played - and you get in his way.

You're only as good as you're next thought of yourself.

Oneness with God is not a dream, it is the only reality. Everything else is an illusion.

I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking.

Don't pretend to care. I don't need you as an anesthetic.

I'm a huge fan of television, and it's a really good time to be a fan of television, because there's so much good stuff out there. In every genre, really.

Returning to the source is serenity.

A leader has to show the face his team needs to see.

I am opposed to the redefinition of marriage.

Don't die without embracing the daring adventure your life is meant to be.

But a writer's contribution is literary and a film is not literary. When you take that stuff off the page, and cast the people who are going to fit into those roles, that's what being a director is.