Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.

That's what it is that you rehearse - the making of music, not the playing of notes as abstractions.

Raving mad is quite easy. You just chew up the scenery or something. It's quiet mad that's hard.

The secret of living is to find people who will pay you money to do what YOU would pay to do if you had the money.

If you approach an opera as though it were something that always went a certain way, that's what you get. I approach an opera as though I didn't know it.

Success is important only to the extent that it puts one in a position to do more things one likes to do.

Music - opera particularly - is a process which is endurable or successful only if it is achieved by people who love to collaborate.