It is better to invert reality than to copy it.

Stupid criticism and still more stupid praise.

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.

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.

Through care taken over trends, the desire to be novel and affectation knowledge, we repudiate our art, our instinct, our own way of doing things; it is absurd and stupid

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.

The success of our operas rests most of the time in the hands of the conductor. This person is as necessary as a tenor or a prima donna.