Quotes by Ervin Nyíregyházi:
I am a rotten son of a bitch pianist, but God does speak through me.
I want a woman who gives me butter in the real way, the way they serve to President Carter. I want a butter knife—that is imperative. A woman who does not give me a butter knife, we get a divorce next day….She might as well say Beethoven is no good composer.
No matter how poor I am, I am an aristocrat.
If Liszt believes in God, I believe it!
None of my teachers taught me anything I did not already know, but Dohnányi and Lamond inspired me.
The important thing is not for me to play the compositions, but to express their compositions through my way of living.
I’m not at all sure whether I am a genius. Assuming I am, I would say that I feel very humble. Whether it is my genius, let us say, or the genius of Beethoven or Liszt or Brahms, or Immanuel Kant, it is subject to a power so far above the individual human being that we can’t even grasp it. But we must realize it.
Maybe I am a greater man than a pianist. If you said that to me, I’d just kiss you.
I am first a man, second a philosopher and composer, and hardly a pianist.
I don’t accept that I am a genius, I only accept that I am a man, a “goodtime Charley”, you know.
I’m a travelling salesman, baby! Who likes to play the piano to get girls! And if you don’t like it, lump it.
I must not be judged by my adherence to the score. I used a score to embroider my libido. I have a hell of a time.
I don’t have a good time in the bathroom…I mean, the bedroom…so I do it on the concert stage!
It’s the same as making love to a woman. I can make the woman shake like hell, but on the other hand I can say “You’re so wonderful, you’re so tender.” And my attitude towards a piano is very much like my attitude towards a woman I want to make love to. In other words, when I make love on the piano it’s really a woman. The piano is only a mirror.
Actually I don’t make love to a piano, I make love to a wonderful woman. And it doesn’t have to be a particular woman, just any woman—I love the feminine sex.
Truly, it is a greater pleasure to go to a whorehouse than to see the Queen of England.
You know what my biggest problem has been in life? My pecker!
I’m addicted to Liszt, oral sex and alcohol…not necessarily in that order.
Quotes about Ervin Nyíregyházi:
When the [masked] pianist came onto the stage in his mask and struck the opening chord of his program, bringing the piano to its knees with one stroke, everyone shouted, “Nyíregyházi”!
But I must say that I have never heard such a pianist before… First, [Nyíregyházi] does not play at all in the style you and I strive for. And just as I did not judge him on that basis, I imagine that when you hear him, you too will be compelled to ignore all matters of principle, and probably will end up doing just as I did. For your principles would not be the proper standard to apply. What he plays is expression in the older sense of the word, nothing else; but such power of expression I have never heard before. You will disagree with his tempi as much as I did. You will also note that he often seems to give primacy to sharp contrasts at the expense of form, the latter appearing to get lost. I say appearing to; for then, in its own way, his music surprisingly regains its form, makes sense, establishes its own boundaries. The sound he brings out of the piano is unheard of, or at least I have never heard anything like it.
That boy played the Waldstein better than Busoni did.
You played it in the vagabondo style.
Giacomo Puccini, after hearing Ervin play excerpts from his operas
…the second Franz Liszt!
Sergei Bortkiewicz, after hearing Ervin play through his First Piano Concerto
Nyíregyházi? He could do anything at the keyboard.
Ernő Dohnányi, who taught Nyíregyházi for free
Caleb Hu 
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