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If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.

Dmitri Shostakovich

I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin’s orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Death Forever Kill Myself Order Starve Suffering
Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Business Happiness Ourselves Rejoice
When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Believe Despair Himself Man
Music is good, not evil. Poetry is good, not evil. Primitive, but oh, so true!
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Evil Goodness Music True
I write music, it’s performed. After all, my music says it all. It doesn’t need historical and hysterical commentaries. In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Comment History Important Music Myself Performance Writing
I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I should be deported.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Count Job Live Myself Natural Work
What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy? Doesn’t laughter also have a claim to that lofty title? I want to fight for the legitimate right of laughter in “serious” music.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Emotion Fight Human Laughter Lyric Music Sadness Tragedy
The real geniuses know where their writing has to be good and where they can get away with some mediocrity.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Average Genius Reality Writing
The majority of my symphonies are tombstones.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Majority Music Symphony
If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Dedication Hands Music Myself Teeth
It’s about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Believe Evil People Run Stop
He fell like a chicken into the soup.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Chicken Fall Soup
Every piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator. If a work doesn’t express the composers own personal point of view, his own ideas, then it doesn’t, in my opinion, even deserve to be born.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Born Creator Deserve Expression Form Music Personal Pieces Point
The best way to hold on to something is to pay no attention to it. The things you love too much perish. You have to treat everything with irony, especially the things you hold dear. There’s more of a chance then that they’ll survive.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Attention Best Chance Hold Pay Survive Treat Yourself
Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Leadership Music People Reality Revolution
Football is the ballet of the masses.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Football Mass Sports
What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Fragile Head Paper Vessel
A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Beautiful Greatness Music Performance
Those who have ears to hear, will hear.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Ability Ear Hear
In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Important Music Myself Run Word
I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don’t succeed, I consider it my own fault.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Mistake Myself Possible Success Try Understand Wide
I don’t know what will become of this piece. Our brave critics will no doubt charge me with imitating Ravel’s Bolero. Too bad – this is how I hear war.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Brave Doubt Imitation Pieces War
A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Artist Creativity Previous Satisfaction Work
Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Compose Hate Myself Thinking Worship
The most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on to the fugue.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Childhood Compose Interest Reading

If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.

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If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.

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