Robert Schumann Quotes

I have witnessed and greatly enjoyed the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.

I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees.

I just talk a lot, that's the problem.

We've been listening to Wagner, which is so great.

I talk too much.

The trouble with me is that I like to talk too much.

You know you haven't stopped talking since I came here? You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle!

The first 'Ring' in Bayreuth was about the poetical world, the mythological world.

I just can't listen to any more Wagner, you know...I'm starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.

It was fun to talk too much [as Jebediah Woodley], to keep running your mouth whether the other characters want to hear it or not. That's part of what made this guy fun.

There is such a torture, happily unknown to ancient tyranny, as talking a man to death. Marcus Aurelius advises to assent readily to great talkers--in hopes, I suppose, to put an end to the argument.

People do too much. They say too much.

Wagner has some great moments, but a lot of miserable half hours.

Whom the disease of talking still once posses-seth, he can never hold his peace.

You might say that Richard Wagner was the Queen Victoria of Europe. He had musical children everywhere!

Richard Wagner, a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.

I'm afraid I talk a lot, too much, perhaps. I should have been a lawyer or a college professor or a windy politician, though I'm glad I am not any of these.

Sorry to interrupt myself, but it's the only way I stop talking.

Chatterers are a menace.

… talks too much.

I talk a lot, and that is probably exhausting.

Of course there is really vile anti-Semitism in Wagner's writings, but I can't accept the idea that characters like Beckmesser and Alberich are Jewish stereotypes in disguise. Would Beckmesser be a court councillor if he was meant to be a Jewish stereotype? No Jew could occupy such a role.

I was really talkative as a child. The priest used to pray for me not to talk so much because I was distracting the other kids.

They see me all the time at Bayreuth and think I only like Wagner's music, and it's not true.

There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality, and talk too much.