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

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.

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.

A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.

At the end of the day we’re all reactive personalities. We just don’t know it until we meet the right catalyst.

Every living word that gives life was once without form.

The ground had opened up and spit out hell, Nell thought, and the detritus was Shiloh.

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.

In the past there were too many portraits of Chairman Mao in China. They were hung everywhere. That was not proper and it didn't really show respect for Chairman Mao.

If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.

And it's the educated barbarian who is the worst: he knows what to destroy.

Obamacare is benefiting [Donald] Trump supporters.

A well balanced, inclusive approach, is essential for the proper government of any country.

I do not think a similar goal, to attain fame, drove me when I was a child and young woman.