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" It takes a Bobby White to make a tired 90-year-old composer write a song about love. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

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" Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

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

Gian Carlo Menotti

" People ask me whether I'm religious. Well, in a certain way, I am. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" I have the feeling that everybody was waiting for me to die so they could rediscover me. Then they found out I'm not dead yet, so they are rediscovering me while I'm still alive. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" 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. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" God gives you the gift of melody or He doesn't - it's as simple as that. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" Any subject is good for opera if the composer feels it so intently he must sing it out. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" I have always felt that art, especially music, is but a demonstration of God. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" I should have worked harder in my life. I suffer from a guilt complex. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" Melody is a form of remembrance. It must have a quality of inevitability in our ears. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" I rebelled against the idea of the artist being what I call the 'after-dinner mint' of society. I didn't want them to be just the entertainers, but rather part of the community - the bread, not only the dessert. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

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

Gian Carlo Menotti

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

Gian Carlo Menotti

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

Gian Carlo Menotti

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

Gian Carlo Menotti

" I really don't think I have that much of the gift; I have a little bit, but I wish I were Schubert or Chopin or Beethoven, though Beethoven had a very difficult time writing melody, too. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" It was my contention that opera can not only pay for itself if it is well given, but it can also command a much wider audience if given like a play with lots of rehearsals and wonderful singers that fit the role. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" There are three reasons why I live in Scotland. First, I like silence, and you have to be a millionaire to buy silence in Italy. Second, I like cold weather. Third, in Italy I have too many relatives and know too many people, so I never get a quiet time. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" As a little boy of 3 or 4, I became lame. Something was wrong with my right leg. There are pictures of me being pulled around in a little wagon. The doctors didn't know what to do. So my nanny took me to the miraculous Madonna at Sacro Monte in Varese, the priest blessed me, and I walked. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" I loathe my body. The liver spots, the sagging flesh. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" Fate has blessed me. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

" I have a heart problem, so I have to simplify my life and be content with memories and friends and music. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

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

Gian Carlo Menotti