In Romanticism, the main determinant is the mood, the atmosphere. And in that regard, you could also describe Schubert as a Romantic.

If you only do little clusters - three or four songs by one, and another, and then yet another - you lose the opportunity to think your way into the composer's mind, since, after all, most of these pieces are quite brief.

But, on the other hand, if Schubert were alive today, he would find even richer fields to plow.

When you go out onto the stage, all the preparation has to be forced into your subconscious. For the moment of the performance, we all have to return to a new level of unconsciousness. All the reflection and all the doubts have to be laid aside before you start.

You can't do opera when already from the 10th row you can only see little dolls on the stage. In such an enormous space you can't put much faith in the personal presence of the individual singer, which is reflected in facial expressions, among other things.

It is desirable that people make music on the breath, with the breath.

Anyone who draws attention to himself as an individual, is viewed with suspicion. We acquired this tendency, of course, from America, and we must resist it: levelling, and imitation of what others are already doing.

What concerns me, is the general social tendency to enforce a level, above which nothing rises and stands out.

I came together with younger musicians and tried to pass on my own experiences. In the process, I always tried to maintain my curiosity and spontaneity.

Particularly at around the age of 70 you reach a stage where you have to be very careful. If, at that point, you abandon the work you have been doing, there is a good chance that you will just collapse and drift.

The composition of a single melody is born out of a bit of text, perhaps the first line, but it can also be the entire strophe; it can even be the poem's overall form.

Brahms believed that there was no need to publish absolutely everything that Schubert ever wrote.

All music has to speak in some form or other.

Unfortunately, it happens all too seldom that you really disappear behind a work, that you are no longer audible as an interpreter.

Within each individual young person you meet, you have the same fields to plow. The trick is just to wake thmem up, to sharpen their ears for what's already there in the music.

Admittedly, it is really our duty, as artists, to hold up a mirror to our own era; but, on the other hand, these works have lives of their own, and they're still alive today.

In Romanticism, the main determinant is the mood, the atmosphere. And in that regard, you could also describe Schubert as a Romantic.

Rather, I believe that it is very good, if, with the aid of his songs, we can be reminded, among other things, of the social conditions under which Schubert had to work.

The future? Like unwritten books and unborn children, you don't talk about it.

Many, many composers have only found their way to a certain form, through familiarizing themselves with texts.

Which is why, in my lieder concerts, I always strove, when possible, to sing only the works of a single composer, so that the audience could be gradually drawn into a particular creative genius' way of thinking, and could follow him.

With creative people, truly new horizons open up.

But the thing that will always occupy me the most is music.

And what unity is to be had, at a time when orchestras are dying out, and when opera houses are about to close their doors; what's going to come next - when nothing new in music, for the orchestra, is truly lasting: pieces are performed once, and then they're thrown away.

In fact, the element of play has an important role in my life, and I think that should be the case in the life of every artist. Our life is occupied with playing, whether we play an instrument or a role.

Toward the end of his life, one can sense that he was no longer thinking his way into the minds of others, causing them to speak on his behalf, but that he was now speaking for himself.

It's not all that different with the orchestra. There are orchestras that seem to be encased in dough, so that first you have to break through the normal routine, and clear out the openings.

Consider what a romantic expedition you are on; take notes.

A handful of older, romantic leading men, like Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Redford are still landing parts.

Are you kidding? I'm a terrible cook, but John is a really great one. Literally, I never cook. The whole time we were dating, I prepared two officially romantic meals. Both of them were such disasters that he begs me never to go into the kitchen again.

The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

I'm a really huge fan of the old romantic comedies from the '30s and '40s... Huge fan. I love all that stuff.

I don't get off on romantic parts. But I often think if I had had my dental work done early on, well, maybe.

But other vampire stories? Well, no, I really haven't read too many, and I can't say I'm crazy about romantic vampires anyway - to me the vampire is simply an evil monster.

I'm a hopeless romantic, and very much the person in a relationship to go: If things are going well, I'll buy the flowers, remember the dates of things, plan fun nights out.

I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a reporter. I don't know where I got the idea that it was a romantic calling.

I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

Remember, beneath every cynic there lies a romantic, and probably an injured one.

Am I a romantic? I've seen 'Wuthering Heights' ten times. I'm a romantic.

In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person.

After these three novels I gave up writing novels for a time; I was dissatisfied with romantic doom, yet didn't see much way around it.

I broke my nose in gym when a ball hit me. I took a girl to her debutante ball the next week wearing a tux and a big, honking bandage. Not the romantic night she had in mind.

I believe that when you're in love you have to pour your heart and soul out to your partner... or why bother? So in that sense I'm an incurable romantic when it comes to men.

Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.

Personally, I can't see why it would be any less romantic to find a husband in a nice four-color catalogue than in the average downtown bar at happy hour.

Clearly romantic comedy is my franchise genre, I don't mind saying that, it's true. I love doing them and hopefully always will do them.

You know, the man of my dreams might walk round the corner tomorrow. I'm older and wiser and I think I'd make a great girlfriend. I live in the realm of romantic possibility.

And even Moonstruck - for some reason the audience were just in the mood for a very romantic film, because it's one of the few romantic comedies to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

It's a very romantic sentiment, but to think that you would die if you didn't write, well, I would definitely choose to not write and live.