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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

If you think that the brass is not blowing loud enough, mute it by a couple of degrees.

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

Never look at the brass - it only encourages them.

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

There isn't meaning if we give everything in replace for nothing!

Hierarchies are celestial. In hell all are equal.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather.

Ain't no right way to do the wrong thing.

Truly, men make too little use of their lives; and so it is no wonder that the world should still be in such a poor way.

We all do foolish things when we are in love. Don't we, your grace?

Love is the only thing worth fighting for.

The reconciling gospel is always at the forefront of the church’s social action, because a full belly is not better than a reconciled soul.

Christian freedom does not mean being free to do as we like; it means being free to do as we ought.