Must one become seventy years old to recognize that one's greatest strength lies in creating musical kitsch?

- Richard Strauss

Its a funny thing Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung.

- Richard Strauss

don't perspire while conducting - only the audience should get warm.

- Richard Strauss

The most perfect melodic shapes are found in Mozart; he has the lightness of touch which is the true objective ... Listen to the remarkable expansion…

- Richard Strauss

I want to be able to depict in music a glass of beer so accurately that every listener can tell whether it is a Pilsner or a Kulmbacher.

- Richard Strauss

On conducting: If you can just barely hear the French horns on stage, the balance is perfect.

- Richard Strauss

He'd be better off shoveling snow.

- Richard Strauss

I shall never be converted, and I shall remain true to my old religion of the classics until my life's end.

- Richard Strauss

The aria, after all, is the soul of opera.

- Richard Strauss