Gian Carlo Menotti

“It was my contention that opera can not only pay for itself if it is well given, but it can also command a much wider audience if given like a play with lots of rehearsals and wonderful singers that fit the role.”

“I loathe my body. The liver spots, the sagging flesh.”

“I have a heart problem, so I have to simplify my life and be content with memories and friends and music.”

“Melody is a form of remembrance. It must have a quality of inevitability in our ears.”

“Waiting and hoping are the whole of life, and as soon as a dream is realized it is destroyed.”

“I have the feeling that everybody was waiting for me to die so they could rediscover me. Then they found out I'm not dead yet, so they are rediscovering me while I'm still alive.”

“God gives you the gift of melody or He doesn't - it's as simple as that.”

“Writing beautiful melodies is not fashionable because it is very difficult to do.”

“The Greeks said the artist doesn't actually have to travel and look around. You stay where God has put you, and you dig as deep as you can. This is what I've done.”

“As a little boy of 3 or 4, I became lame. Something was wrong with my right leg. There are pictures of me being pulled around in a little wagon. The doctors didn't know what to do. So my nanny took me to the miraculous Madonna at Sacro Monte in Varese, the priest blessed me, and I walked.”

“The creation of Spoleto was a social experiment. Because I've always suffered guilt from being a Catholic, when I was in my fifties I felt a need of being needed.”

“Now, all of a sudden, every college and every university has an opera theater. Every little city has its little group.”

“It takes a Bobby White to make a tired 90-year-old composer write a song about love.”

“I can sit on a chair with a score and give myself a wonderful performance.”

“My advice to composers is, 'Try to reach 90, and everyone will love you.'”

“A Schubert song, the A-major chord at the opening of Wagner's 'Lohengrin' - such incredible beauty is a mystery, the divinity of music.”