You may have the universe if I may have Italy.

The artist must yield himself to his own inspiraton, and if he has a true talent, no one knows and feels better than he what suits him.

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

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.

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.

It is better to invert reality than to copy it.