"When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed the point."

"I was always too mature for my age - and not very happy. I had no young friends. I wish I could go back to those days. If I could only live it all again, how I would play and enjoy other girls. What a fool I was."

"I would not kill my enemies, but I will make them get down on their knees. I will, I can, I must."

"I would like to be Maria, but there is La Callas who demands that I carry myself with her dignity."

"True authority is measured not by subjugation, but by the empowerment of others. Such is the immutable nature of understanding."

"We opened a design center in the South of England last year as part of our strategy for being close to our customers and developing innovative products for exciting new markets."

"End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I've always been drawn to them, but as I wrote my own, I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed, yet where there's so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary thing we have, and take for granted: hot showers, enough food, friends, routines."

"A manager doesn't hear the cheers."