Salieri: Everybody liked me. I liked myself. Until he came.

Father Vogler: Oh, that's charming! I'm sorry; I didn't know you wrote that.
Salieri: I didn't. That was Mozart. 

Salieri: That was Mozart! -- that dirty-minded little creature I had just seen crawling on the floor!

[Reflecting upon a Mozart score]
Salieri: I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes - at an absolute beauty. 

[the Emperor offers the sheet music of Salieri's welcome march to Mozart]
Mozart: Keep it Majesty, if you want. It's already here in my head.
Emperor Joseph II: What? On one hearing only?
Mozart: I think so, Sire, yes.
Emperor Joseph II: Show us. 

Katerina Cavalieri: I heard you met Herr Mozart.
Salieri: News travels fast in Vienna.
Katerina Cavalieri: And he's been commissioned to write an opera. Is it true?
Salieri: Yes.
Katerina Cavalieri: Is there a part in it for me?
Salieri: No.
Katerina Cavalieri: How would you know?
Salieri: Do you know where it's set, my dear?
Katerina Cavalieri: No.
Salieri: In a harem.
Katerina Cavalieri: What's that?
Salieri: A brothel!
Katerina Cavalieri: Oh-h-h-h. 

Salieri: Mozart, it was good of you to come!
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: How could I not?
Salieri: So, did my work please you?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: [hesitantly] I never knew that music like that was possible!
Salieri: [uncertainly] You flatter me.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: No, no! One hears such sounds, and what can one say but..."Salieri." 

Salieri: God was singing through this little man to all the world, making my defeat more bitter with every passing bar. But then, do you know what happened? 
A miracle! 

Salieri: He was my idol. I can't think of a time when I didn't know his name. 

Emperor Joseph II: Ah-ha. Well, there it is.

Emperor Joseph II: Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty? 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: "Confutatis maledictis" - when the wicked are confounded. "Flammis Acribus Adictis." How would you translate that?
Salieri: Consigned to flames of woe.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Do you believe it?
Salieri: What?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A fire which never dies, burning you forever?
Salieri: Oh yes. 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Forgive me, Majesty. I am a vulgar man! But I assure you, my music is not. 

[addressing the complaints about the "improper" libretto for "Figaro"]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Come on now, be honest! Which one of you wouldn't rather listen to his hairdresser than Hercules? Or Horatius, or Orpheus... people so lofty they sound as if they shit marble!

[about Emperor Joseph II's musical tastes]
Salieri: Actually, the man had no ear at all. But what did it matter? He adored my music. 

[Trying on wigs]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: They're all so beautiful. Why don't I have three heads? 

Salieri: 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 celebrated myself. Make me famous through the world. Dear God make me immortal. After I die let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote. In return I will give You my chastity, my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life, Amen. 

The Emperor: Name us a German virtue!
Mozart: Love, your Majesty.
Salieri: Oh, love! Of course, in Italy we know nothing about love!
Mozart: No, I don't think you do. I mean, watching Italian opera -- all those male sopranos screeching, stupid fat couples rolling their eyes about; that's not love, that's just rubish!!

Mozart: Why must I submit samples of my work to some stupid committee just to teach a thirteen-year-old girl?
Count Von Strack: Because his majesty wishes it.
Mozart: Is the emperor angry with me?
Count Von Strack: Quite the contrary.
Mozart: Then why doesn't he simply appoint me to the post?
Count Von Strack: Mozart, you are not the only composer in Vienna.
Mozart: No. But I'm the best! 

Bishop of Salzburg: [speaking to Leopold]: Your son is an unprincipled, spoiled, conceited brat!

Mozart: [about the royal composer's position he did not get] Whom did they choose?
Salieri: Herr Zummer.
Mozart: Herr Zummer? But the man's a fool, he's a total mediocrity!
Salieri: No, no, he has yet to achieve mediocrity. 

Mozart: It's unbelievable, the director has actually torn up a huge section of my music. They say I have to rewrite the opera. But it's perfect as it is! I can't rewrite what's perfect! 

Constanze Mozart: Wolfie, I think you really are going mad. You work like a slave for that idiot actor who won't give you a penny. And here, this is not a ghost! This is a real man who puts down real money. Why on earth won't you finish it? Can you give me one reason I can understand?
Mozart: It's killing me. 

[sources: imdb.com and Lydia's Amadeus fl)
 

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