I adore art...when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear.

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.

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.

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.

It is better to invert reality than to copy it.

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

It may be a good thing to copy reality; but to invent reality is much, much better.