What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.

When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.

Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward.

If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.

I write music, it’s performed. After all, my music says it all. It doesn’t need historical and hysterical commentaries. In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.

In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin's orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.

It's about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.

The most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on to the fugue.

A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.

The attitude of gratitude gives you the right rectitude and sound attitude towards life

I do not deny the possibility that the people may err in an election; but if they do, the true [cure] is in the next election, and not in the treachery of the person elected.

Knowledge of the past and an optimistic view of the present give you great opportunities.

In the university, professors make up artificial problems. In the real world, the problems do not come in nice, neat packages. They have to be discovered.

[Brad Furman] wants to try stuff, he's willing to try stuff. And he wants electricity on the camera. And that's what I want, I want electricity whenever I'm performing.

...it is curiosity, initiative, originality, and the ruthless application of honesty that count in research- much more than feats of logic and memory alone.

Christ wants to slay reason and subdue the arrogance of the Jews.

Finally, in conclusion, let me say just this.

We must give lengthy deliberation to what has to be decided once and for all.

The undeserver may sleep when the man of action is called on.