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

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.

It is better to invert reality than to copy it.

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

You may have the universe if I may have Italy.

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.

To copy the truth can be a good thing, but to invent the truth is better, much better.