Art Quote by Dmitri Shostakovich

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

— Dmitri Shostakovich

It's about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.

— Dmitri Shostakovich

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 -…

— 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…

— Dmitri Shostakovich

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

Many consider that Shostakovich is the greatest 20th-century composer. In his 15 symphonies, 15 quartets, and in other works he demonstrated mastery of the…

— Dmitri Shostakovich

I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I…

— Dmitri Shostakovich

Football is the ballet of the masses.

— Dmitri Shostakovich

Music is good, not evil. Poetry is good, not evil. Primitive, but oh, so true!

— Dmitri Shostakovich

In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

— Dmitri Shostakovich

Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward.

— Dmitri Shostakovich

The most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on…

— Dmitri Shostakovich