The aria, after all, is the soul of opera.

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.

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

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.

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.

Its easy to find others in pitch darkness, but to find your own self in light is hardest task

The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole.

At the start of the season you're strong enough to win the Premiership and the European Cup, but you have to be as strong in March, when the fish are down.

Security ... it's simply the recognition that changes will take place and the knowledge that you're willing to deal with whatever happens.

I didn't want to make a man the No. 1 quest in my life.

In "Drive," there's a heightened male edge. In "Only God Forgives," it was almost crawling back into the womb of the mother. And now with "The Neon Demon," being reborn as a 16-year-old girl.

The society is the extension of the individual. If the individual is greedy, cruel, merciless, egoistic, etc. so it will be the society.

As to our trade and economic relations with China, they are growing more and more diverse each day, something we have worked on for a long time with our partners from China.

Michael Jackson changed the world and, more personally, my life forever.