Must one become seventy years old to recognize that one's greatest strength lies in creating musical kitsch?

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

Never look at the trombones, you'll just encourage them.

I want to be able to depict in music a glass of beer so accurately that every listener can tell whether it is a Pilsner or a Kulmbacher.

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

He'd be better off shoveling snow.

Its a funny thing Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung.