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

- Dmitri Shostakovich

The majority of my symphonies are tombstones.

- Dmitri Shostakovich

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…

- Dmitri Shostakovich

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

- Dmitri Shostakovich

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

- Dmitri Shostakovich

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

- Dmitri Shostakovich

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

- Dmitri Shostakovich

Those who have ears to hear, will hear

- Dmitri Shostakovich

The real geniuses know where their writing has to be good and where they can get away with some mediocrity.

- Dmitri Shostakovich