Extreme complication is contrary to art.
I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naive candour of a child.
He was the incomparable painter of mystery, silence, and the infinite, of the passing cloud, and the sunlit shimmer of the waves-subleties which none before him had been capable of suggesting.
I have a horror of sentimentality, and I cannot forget that its name is Saint-Saëns.
First of all, ladies and gentlemen, you must forget that you are singers.
Composers aren't daring enough. They're afraid of that sacred idol called 'common sense', which is the most dreadful thing I know - after all, it's no more than a religion founded to excuse the ubiquity of imbeciles!