Eating, loving, singing, and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like bubbles of a bottle of champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool.

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

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

Nothing primes inspiration more than necessity.

How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.

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.