42 Quotes by Gian Carlo Menotti

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

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.

A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.

At the premieres, I always watch the audience. If a child asks to go to the bathroom, I know I've failed.

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

For better or for worse, in 'The Last Savage,' I have dared to do away completely with fashionable dissonance, and in a modest way, I have endeavored to rediscover the nobility of gracefulness and the pleasure of sweetness.

One lived in the impression that nobody could ever compete with the 'Nutcracker' or 'A Christmas Carol.'

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

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