Dmitri Shostakovich

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.

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.

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, especially the things you hold dear. There's more of a chance then that they'll survive.

Football is the ballet of the masses.

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