Antonio Salieri: [about Emperor Joseph II's musical tastes] Actually, the man had no ear at all. But what did it matter. He adored my music.
Antonio Salieri: [to Father Vogel] I will speak for you, Father. I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: I actually threw the score on the fire, he made me so angry. Antonio Salieri: You burned the score? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: No, no. My wife took it out in time.
Antonio Salieri: I heard the music of true forgiveness filling the theater, conferring on all who sat there, perfect absolution. God was singing through this little man to all the world, unstoppable, making my defeat more bitter with every passing ba...
Antonio Salieri: All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing... and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn't want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?
[the Emperor offers the sheet music of Salieri's welcome march to Mozart] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Keep it Majesty, if you want. It's already here in my head. Emperor Joseph II: What? On one hearing only? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: I think so, Sire, ye...
Antonio Salieri: [addressing a crucifix] From now, we are enemies... You and I. Because You choose for Your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me for reward only to recognize the incarnation. Because You are unjust, unfair...
Antonio Salieri: He was my idol. Mozart, I can't think of a time when I didn't know his name. I was still playing childish games and he was playing music for kings and emperors. Even the Pope in Rome! I admit I was jealous when I heard the tales they...
Antonio Salieri: [to Father Vogel] Your merciful God. He destroyed His own beloved, rather than let a mediocrity share in the smallest part of His glory. He killed Mozart and kept me alive to torture! 32 years of torture! 32 years of slowly watching ...
Antonio Salieri: [reflecting upon a Mozart score] On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse. Bassoons and basset horns, like a rusty squeezebox. And then suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging t...
Antonio Salieri: [to Father Vogel] While my father prayed earnestly to God to protect commerce, I would offer up secretly the proudest prayer a boy could think of: "Lord, make me a great composer. Let me celebrate Your glory through music and be cele...
Antonio Salieri: [to Father Vogel] So rose the dreadful ghost from his next and blackest opera. There, on the stage, stood the figure of a dead commander. And I knew, only I understood that the horrifying aparition was Leopold, raised from the dead! ...
