The taste of death is upon my lips. I feel something that is not of this earth.

She's only pretty in that she has two small black eyes and a good figure.

I will gladly give lessons as a favor, particularly when I see that my student has talent, inclination, and anxiety to learn; but to be obliged to go to a house at a certain hour, or to have to wait at home for a pupil, is what I cannot do, no matter how much money it may bring me in. . . I am a composer and was born to be a Kapellmeister. I neither can nor ought to bury the talent for composition with which God in his goodness has so richly endowed me. . .

The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.

God first, then papa.

I love it when an aria fits a singer as perfectly as a suit of well-tailored clothes.

One must not make oneself cheap here - that is a cardinal point - or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance.