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" 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

Play

Pay

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

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

Gian Carlo Menotti

Simple

Melody

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

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" 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

Audience

Watch

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

Gian Carlo Menotti

Subject

Good

" 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. "

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

" 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.' "

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

" Fate has blessed me. "

Gian Carlo Menotti

Blessed

Fate

" 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. "

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

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