To regret the past, to hope in the future, and never to be satisfied with the present: that is what I spend my whole life doing

Music is an incomparably more powerful means and is a subtler language for expressing the thousand different moments of the soul's moods.

Where the heart does not enter; there can be no music.

Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music.

Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.

Madam, you ask me how I compose. I compose sitting down.

Music possesses much richer means of expression and it is a more subtle medium for translating the 1000 shifting moments of the feelings of the soul.

After the last notes of Gotterdammerung I felt as though I had been let out of prison.

I like the plot of The Nutcracker - not at all.

The creative process is like music which takes root with extraordinary force and rapidity

What I need is to believe in myself again — for my faith has been greatly undermined; it seems to me my role is over.

Not every gift must you stretch your hands to take! Sometimes, just put your hands by your side and humbly and courageously say thank you!

Learn to be comfortable in your own skin despite what you see and hear.

A true gentleman makes demands upon himself but not upon others.

Freedom is an endless meeting.

You have only one life, make the most of it

First, the human mind should be harmonized, then the harmony of Nature will spontaneously take place.

The perception of poverty as morally intolerable in a rich society had to await the emergence of a rich society

To be young, gifted and black!

I don't spend a lot of time judging anyone I play. Even if their function in the script is to be the villain, I concentrate on what their perspective of the events is. Not even to justify them.

Happiness can be bought with a bottle of wine and has become ambiguous through overuse.