“An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it...” — Maria Callas Quote

“An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.”

“Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddam rules.”

“I prepare myself for rehearsals like I would for marriage.”

“I want to liberate my imagination and my mind with every kind of movie. That is what I wanted to do all my life.”

“I felt the pressure of imagination against the doors of my mind was so great that they were going to burst.”

“Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.”