Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

Don't bother looking at the view - I have already composed it.

A true personality . . . is like a robust organism that, with unconscious sureness, seeks out and digests the nourishment appropriate to it and vigorously rejects that which is unsuitable.

I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life.

Discipline, work. Work, discipline.

An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.