Oh blessed a thousand times the peasant who is born, eats and dies without anybody bothering about his affairs.

I have striven for perfection, it has always eluded me, but I surely had an obligation to make one more try.

Stupid criticism and still more stupid praise.

The artist must yield himself to his own inspiration... I should compose with utter confidence a subject that set my musical blood going, even though it were condemned by all other artists as anti-musical.

Our mistake, you see, was to write interminable large operas, which had to fill an entire evening. And now along comes someone with a one or two-act opera without all that pompous nonsense - that was a happy reform.

I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.

I deny that either singers or conductors can "create" or work creatively - this, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss.