Never look at the brass - it only encourages them.

I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but the most difficult to play.

I want to be able to depict in music a glass of beer so accurately that every listener can tell whether it is a Pilsner or a Kulmbacher.

I shall never be converted, and I shall remain true to my old religion of the classics until my life's end.

Ideas, like young wine, should be put in storage and taken up again only after they have been allowed to ferment and to ripen.

Its a funny thing Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung.

On conducting: If you can just barely hear the French horns on stage, the balance is perfect.

If you think that the brass is not blowing loud enough, mute it by a couple of degrees.

Never look at the trombones, you'll just encourage them.

Must one become seventy years old to recognize that one's greatest strength lies in creating musical kitsch?

Time and Patience they both test each other. One fails other takes over....

Winning her heart again meant more than any championship.

The Christian life is more than just commitment to Christ

I'm as much a victim of the romantic myth of 'getting away' as anyone else. My head tells me it's myth, but I don't want to believe it is.

Find a faster way to fail, recover, and try again.

Always wear high heels. Yes, they give you power. you move differently, sit differently and even speak differently.

History is clarified experience.

Because of the security reasons for one thing and, second, my wife doesn't like to have her hair blown about. Have you got another silly question?

My mother was a churchgoing lady, so I always heard about God at home

Patience, piety, and salutary knowledge spring up and ripen under the harrow of affliction; before there is wine or oil, the grape must be trodden and the oil pressed.