Any great work of art . . . revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world -- the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.
Genius without religion is only a lamp on the outer gate of a palace; it may serve to cast a gleam on those that are without while the inhabitant sits in darkness.
Opera, n. A play representing life in another world whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures, and no postures but attitudes.