I do not mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand.

Sir Edward Appleton (1892-1965)
The Observer, London, August 28, 1955

There is no shadow of death anywhere in Mozart's music. Even his own funeral was a failure. It was dispersed by a shower of rain; and to this day nobody knows where he was buried or whether he was buried at all or not. My own belief is that he was not. Depend on it, they had no sooner put up their umbrellas and bolted for the nearest shelter than he got up, shook off his bones into the common grave of the people, and soared off into universality.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Music in London, 1890-94, 1931

The blues always impressed me as being very sad, sadder even than the spirituals, because their sadness is not softened with tears, but hardened with laughter, the absurd incongruous laughter of a sadness without even a god to appeal to.

Langston Hughes
Letter to Carl Van Vechten