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

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.

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.

Through care taken over trends, the desire to be novel and affectation knowledge, we repudiate our art, our instinct, our own way of doing things; it is absurd and stupid

Nostalgia locates desire in the past where it suffers no active conflict and can be yearned toward pleasantly.

Without emotion, all thoughts or words are powerless.

He let her do it, then looked around for his fingers. There they were, curled like a bloody quotation mark on the lead. He laughed.

The plum-colored night sky was shifting to pink to make room for the day, which looked as though it might turn out “glorious and whimsical, ” as the Key West Citizen had promised.

The government sets targets for increased four-year high school graduation rates as part of its agenda for improving Americans' health.

Vegetarian: Indian word for lousy hunter.

I'm a painter, I'm an artist. I take things too far sometimes. I really need some comfort.

Talking to a drunk person was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year-old.

Foxes are rats in expensive coats. What are foxes associated with? Evil, wily, conniving, duplicitous, Fox News - worst news service on the planet and the evilest.

I guess the disc jockey thought I was trying to sing or something so ... they had fun with it. But the reality was that it was something, there was a concept behind it.