I adore art... when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear.

I have striven for perfection, it has always eluded me, but I surely had an obligation to make one more try.

To copy the truth can be a good thing, but to invent the truth is better, much better.

I adore art...when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear.

It is better to invert reality than to copy it.

It may be a good thing to copy reality; but to invent reality is much, much better.

The artist must yield himself to his own inspiraton, and if he has a true talent, no one knows and feels better than he what suits him.

Stupid criticism and still more stupid praise.

The success of our operas rests most of the time in the hands of the conductor. This person is as necessary as a tenor or a prima donna.

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

Oh blessed a thousand times the peasant who is born, eats and dies without anybody bothering about his affairs.

It is literature which for me opened the mysterious and decisive doors of imagination and understanding. To see the way others see. To think the way others think. And above all, to feel.

If you would know whether you have made a good confession, ask yourself I you have resolved to abandon your sins.

We are the only animals that let our kids come back home.

Intrinsic value follows meaning follows form follows economics follows function follows more economics follows market research.

A novel is a conversation between a reader and a writer.

As a culture women are brought up to be fundamentally insecure.

If only for the sake of elegance, I try to remain morally pure.

I respond to a part just intuitively when I read a script.

If you are following the dharma no matter what you do it is moral.

The bee, though it finds every rose has a thorn, comes back loaded with honey from his rambles; and why should not other tourists do the same?