In the Negro melodies of America I find all that is needed for a great and noble school of music.

Mozart is sweet sunshine.

The Americans expect great things of me ... If the small Czech nation can have such musicians, they say, why could not they, too, when their country and people is so immense.

I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States.

My own duty as a teacher...is not so much to interpret Beethoven, Wagner, or other masters of the past, but to give what encouragement I can to the young musicians of America. I...hope that just as this nation has already surpassed so many others in marvelous inventions and feats of engineering and commerce, and has made an honorable place for itself in literature in one short century, so it must assert itself on the...art of music...To bring about this result, we must trust the very youthful enthusiasm and patriotism of this country.

In the Negro melodies of America I find all that is needed for a great and noble school of music.

Do not wonder that I am so religious. An artist who is not could not produce anything like this. I like praying there at the window when I look out on the green and at the sky. I study with the birds, flowers, God and myself.