Dmitry Kabalevsky

"You can't think you can write a pop song with your left foot or with whatever hand but if there is a symphony you need to sit behind the table, to think. You need to think about the pop song. If you don't think about it then it turns out to be trash and vulgarity, of which there are plenty now on the air. And the second conclusion is this: if you like light music this is completely natural. For example, if I didn’t like light music I wouldn't have written the music for Anton Ivanovich Is Angry. But if you like only light music then you are a poor fellow."

"Neuhaus summed him up rather well when he called him the poor man's Prokofiev or Shostakovich. I knew him, but it would never have occured to me to play his threatbare music. (...) K. was a true intellectual, someone who was genuinely cultured, but as a person he was compromised, and deeply unpleasant."