Mikis Theodorakis Quotes

Mikis Theodorakis

Profession : Composer

Birth : July 29, 1925

The conservatory professors thought everything should sound like French and German symphonies. But to my ear, bouzouki songs, which tell the sufferings and heartaches of ordinary people, offered a way to make classical music available not just to the upper classes.

Mikis Theodorakis

I compose for the common man, for our epoch.

Mikis Theodorakis

I mixed with a lot of peasants, workers, artists and writers, all deprived of work. That's when I understood human beings have an instinct toward knowledge.

Mikis Theodorakis

A man who goes to jail for his ideas is much freer than his keepers.

Mikis Theodorakis

My dream is to turn Europe into 300 million princes.

Mikis Theodorakis

All our problems happened because the Americans made all the decisions.

Mikis Theodorakis

My music had two protagonists, me and the Greek people.

Mikis Theodorakis

For films, I'm very difficult.

Mikis Theodorakis

I like to have the feeling I'm creating something.

Mikis Theodorakis

There was a Yugoslav film about partisans that I've done the music for, and then I've promised to score a French film called 'Biribi' about detention camps at the turn of the century.

Mikis Theodorakis

I've been uprooted. I don't think a tree that's been uprooted as a happy tree and I'm not very happy. I can't be. I do not accept to be.

Mikis Theodorakis

Oh, what am I for the Frenchman or the Italian? A guy who was in prison, a revolutionary, somebody they once read something about in the newspaper - but not me.

Mikis Theodorakis

When you think of it, you know, probably the biggest victim of our epoch is the American people because of all the crimes committed in its name.

Mikis Theodorakis

I would not sacrifice myself for a system like the Soviet system to be established in Greece.

Mikis Theodorakis