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When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.

Dmitri Shostakovich

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

Dedication Hands Music Myself Teeth
Music is good, not evil. Poetry is good, not evil. Primitive, but oh, so true!
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Evil Goodness Music True
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
The majority of my symphonies are tombstones.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Majority Music Symphony
When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Believe Despair Himself Man
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 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
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
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
Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Business Happiness Ourselves Rejoice
A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Beautiful Greatness Music Performance
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
In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Important Music Myself Run Word
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
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
Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Compose Hate Myself Thinking Worship

When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.

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When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.

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