“Opera in English, is about as sensible as baseball in Italian.”

“An enchanted life has many moments when the heart is overwhelmed with beauty and the imagination is electrified by some haunting quality in the world or by a spirit or voice speaking from deep within a thing, a place, or a person." ~ Henry Louis Mencken”

“Vertrauen ist das Gefühl, einem Menschen sogar dann glauben zu können, wenn man weiß, dass man an seiner Stelle lügen würde.”

“If we assume that man actually does resemble God, then we are forced into the impossible theory that God is a coward, an idiot and a bounder.”

“The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.”

“The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.”

“The opera…is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.”