One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend to hear it a second time.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind.

The language of music is common to all generations and nations; it is understood by everybody, since it is understood with the heart.

Give me a laundry list and I'll set it to music.

Nothing primes inspiration more than necessity.

Beethoven I take twice a week, Haydn four times, and Mozart every day.

Music is a kind of harmonious language.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the only musician who had as much knowledge asgenius, and as much genius as knowledge.

Answer them critics with silence and indifference. It works better, I assure you, than anger and argument. . . .

Nothing primes inspiration more than necessity, whether it be the presence of a copyist waiting for your work or the prodding of an impresario tearing his hair.

If Beethoven is a prodigy of man, Bach is a miracle of God.

‎He often envied people who hadn't read his favourite books. They had such happiness before them.

The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions.

And in real life endings aren't always neat, whether they're happy endings, or whether they're sad endings.

Time trouble is blunder time.

Self-doubt does more to sabotage individual potential than all external limitations put together.

Neglecting to broaden their view has kept some people doing one thing all their lives.

It must be admitted that there are some parts of the soul which we must entirely paralyse before we can live happily in this world.

You will draw to yourself that which you most persistently think about

The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.

I can look at myself in the mirror, and I can be proud.