'The Sound of Music' is set in 1938 in Austria at the time of the Anschluss.

I've never lived in an English-speaking country, ever, but I lived in Austria. So, my second language is German. And when I went to school, I had a lot of classes in English.

That Germany was so immensely strong and Austria so dependent upon German strength that the word and will of Germany would at the critical moment be decisive with Austria.

In effect, I was asking that if Russia mobilized against Austria, the German Government, who had been supporting the Austrian demand on Serbia, should ask Austria to consider some modification of her demands, under the threat of Russian mobilization.

I said to the German Ambassador that, as long as there was only a dispute between Austria and Serbia alone, I did not feel entitled to intervene; but that, directly it was a matter between Austria and Russia, it became a question of the peace of Europe, which concerned us all.

In Austria, a rather authoritarian Catholic country, the role of the social admonisher traditionally fell to artists because there were no great political thinkers.

The role of Italy and of Austria has diminished as has that of France and Britain; Germany and Japan have suffered catastrophically.

I finished my studies in England, I opened my studio in London, and the first one-man exhibit I had on Bond Street, which was opened by the Austrian ambassador.

I did a ski festival in Austria once. I was struck by how friendly Austrians were, before gradually realising it's more that Glaswegians are awful.

IN trying to recall my impressions during my short war duty as an officer in the Austrian Army, I find that my recollections of this period are very uneven and confused.

I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed.

I was born an only child in Vienna, Austria. My father found hours to sit by me by the library fire and tell fairy stories.

I declare myself an Austrian and a European. A united Europe will be a peaceful Europe.

One of the middle ones in the flock, I was born on July 24, 1857, in the small Jutland town of Fredericia. In 1863, my father was transferred to Randers, another Jutland town, where a year later, at the age of six, I experienced the invasion of the allied Prussian and Austrian armies.

I was happy to find out that when on tour, Dolly Parton doesn't use hotels but stays on her bus every night, to the point of having her buses shipped from Austria to Australia so she can tour the way she sees fit. I used one of her buses once - an honor.

When I was a child, all I wanted was to enter the Austrian team and to compete on the World Cup tour. I had to fight hard to reach this. I wanted badly to win each race.

If I remain healthy, I can win more races, but I don't think so much about setting new records. I'm already proud to have become the leading Austrian World Cup racer.

I am looking forward to a series of productive meetings in both Austria and Estonia, particularly what role organized crime plays in the Baltic drug trade.

The Spanish and the American audiences are lunatics. They are very passionate and, like the Irish, they don't have as many inhibitions. If you are playing somewhere like Austria or Sweden, it takes them a little while to come out of themselves.

I wasn't born Austrian; I wasn't born German. My roots are from Africa, and I do not have any reason for not wanting to celebrate that. Every time that I can, I like to kind of mention it, you know, just to keep people sort of knowing exactly what's going on. My French is pretty good, but I'm still African, thank you very much.

With some other top players I'm part of a company trying to put on events in Europe, especially Germany, but also Poland, Austria, Russia. There's so much talent coming out of the Far East now, and we want the same thing in Europe.

I do remember once going to Salzburg in Austria. Liverpool were playing a European game there, and they put me in a box behind glass. I hate being behind glass; I always want to feel part of the action.

I have Jewish friends. I have Middle Eastern friends. I have Spanish and Italian and British and Scottish and German friends and Austrian friends, and guess what? They all deal with homophobia. It's an earthling epidemic; it's not isolated in the black community.

I know the dangers and the seductions of the Middle East. It is part of my identity. I grew up among a people who routinely referred to the creation of the State of Israel as the Nakba - the catastrophe. And yet I fell in love with and married a Jewish American woman, the only daughter of two Holocaust survivors, both Jewish Austrians.

The house of Austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the country of its legitimate Independence and Constitution, designing to reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery.

The policy of the house of Austria, which aimed at destroying the independence of Hungary as a state, has been pursued unaltered for three hundred years.

We wanted to bring the political situation in Austria on stage. Naturally we could not do that without pointing to Austrian's northern neighbor Germany.

There is a dessert dish in Austria called Kaiserschmarrn - it's kind of like a sweet raisin pancake with eggs and sugar. It's definitely not something I can eat often, but if I've done well at a race, sometimes that's my celebration treat!

How curious that such an outsize man, in physique as well as personality, should be remembered today mainly for giving his name to a small fish. For the 19th century, Bismarck was no herring but a leviathan. Between 1862 and 1890, he created Germany, seeing off first the Austrian empire and then France.

There are pockets of great food in Spain, but there are also pockets of very mediocre food in Spain, and the same in Morocco and the same in Croatia and the same in Germany and the same in Austria.

Everywhere I went, Rapid Vienna or Austria Vienna, there was always a problem. I just wanted a coach who said: 'Just go out and win us the game.'