Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because no matter what public, or what pretty girl wanted it to be thus or thus but to write solely as I myself thought best, and as it gave me pleasure.

I know perfectly well that no musician can make his thoughts or his talents different to what Heaven has made them but I also know that if Heaven had given him good ones, he must also be able to develop them properly.

This is what I think art is and what I demand of it: that it pull everyone in, that it show one person another's most intimate thoughts and feelings, that it throw open the window of the soul.

Such a divine profession is art! When everything else looks so stale and disgustingly vacuous, so enthralls even the littlest real effort of art our innermost and carries us from town, from country, from earth, as that it must be truely a blessing of the Gods.

People usually complain that music is so ambiguous, and what they are supposed to think when they hear it is so unclear, while words are understood by everyone. But for me it is exactly the opposite...what the music I love expresses to me are thoughts not to indefinite for words, but rather too definite.

Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God.

The trombone is too sacred for frequent use.

No one can bar me from joyfully proceeding on what the great masters have left us after all, to rediscover everything again, should be understood to be unfounded. But one should however proceed on merit, and not simply repeat wat was. All genius, sincere, deserves his place, even though maybe later in life.

Life and art are not two different things.

I dislike nothing more than finding fault with a man's nature or talent it only depresses and worries and does no good one cannot add a cubit to one's stature, all striving and struggling are useless there, so one has to be silent about it, and let the responsibility rest with God.

The essence of beauty is unity in variety.

Never mind, put any book on the piano, and someone can turn from time to time, so I need not look as though I played by heart.