The majority of my symphonies are tombstones..

Those who have ears to hear, will hear.

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

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

What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy? Doesn't laughter also have a claim to that lofty title? I want to ….

A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played at any tempo, with or without rhyth….

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

Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise..

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 ab….

Music is a means capable of expressing dark dramatism and pure rapture, suffering and ecstasy, fiery and cold fury, melancholy and wild merriment – a….

The best way to hold on to something is to pay no attention to it. The things you love too much perish. You have to treat everything with irony, espe….

Every piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator...If a work doesnt express the composers own personal point of view, his own id….

We should think more about it, and accustom ourselves to the thought of death. We can't allow the fear of death to creep up on us unexpectedly. We ha….

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

I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth . The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov . It's as if someone w….

Music is good, not evil. Poetry is good, not evil. Primitive, but oh, so true!.

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

People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence..

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 t….

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

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