The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but the most difficult to play.

Ideas, like young wine, should be put in storage and taken up again only after they have been allowed to ferment and to ripen.

I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

On conducting: If you can just barely hear the French horns on stage, the balance is perfect.

The aria, after all, is the soul of opera.

I shall never be converted, and I shall remain true to my old religion of the classics until my life's end.

He'd be better off shoveling snow.