My sole recreations consist in dancing English hornpipes and cutting capers. Italy is a land of sleep; I am always drowsy here.

I hope never to marry in this way; I wish to make my wife happy, but not to become rich by her means, so I will let things alone and enjoy my golden freedom till I am so well off that I can support both wife and children.

As for pupils, I can have as many as I choose, but I do not choose to take many. I intend to be better paid than others, and so I wish to have fewer scholars. It is advisable to hang back a little at first, or it is all over with you, and you must pursue the common highway with the rest.

When I come to reflect on the subject, in no country have I received such honors or been so esteemed as in Italy, and nothing contributes more to a man's fame than to have written Italian operas, and especially for Naples.

My father is maestro at the Metropolitan church, which gives me an opportunity to write for the church as much as I please.

I live in a country where music has very little success, though, exclusive of those who have forsaken us, we have still admirable professors and, more particularly, composers of great solidity, knowledge, and taste.

My Constanze is the virtuous, honourable, discreet, and faithful darling of her honest and kindly-disposed Mozart.

I know nothing new except that Herr Gellert, the Leipzig poet, is dead, and has written no more poetry since his death.

How sad it is that these great gentlemen should believe what anyone tells them and do not choose to judge for themselves! But it is always so.

The happy medium - truth in all things - is no longer either known or valued; to gain applause, one must write things so inane that they might be played on barrel-organs, or so unintelligible that no rational being can comprehend them, though on that very account, they are likely to please.