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I don't choose what I compose. It chooses me.

Gustav Mahler

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Gustav Mahler
Age: 50 †
Born: 1860
Born: July 7
Died: 1911
Died: May 18
Classical Composer
Composer
Conductor
Musician
Mahler
Compose
Chooses
Choose

More quotes by Gustav Mahler

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When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
Gustav Mahler
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It is always the same with me only when I experience something do I compose, and only when composing do I experience! After all, a musician's nature can hardly be expressed in words.
Gustav Mahler
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Both my marriages were failures! Number one departed, and number two stayed
Gustav Mahler
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Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.
Gustav Mahler
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God can only be comprehended as Love.
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I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.
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In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.
Gustav Mahler
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The real art of conducting consists in transitions.
Gustav Mahler
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Don't bother to look, I've composed all this already.
Gustav Mahler
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It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.
Gustav Mahler
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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.
Gustav Mahler
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Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
Gustav Mahler
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An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.
Gustav Mahler
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To write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.
Gustav Mahler
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I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life.
Gustav Mahler
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What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.
Gustav Mahler
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Life's been nothing but paperwork.
Gustav Mahler
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I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.
Gustav Mahler
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The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.
Gustav Mahler
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Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.
Gustav Mahler