Composing is a slowed-down improvisation; often one cannot write fast enough to keep up with the stream of ideas.
Arnold SchoenbergI find above all that the expression, atonal music, is most unfortunate — it is on a par with calling flying the art of not falling, or swimming the art of not drowning.
Arnold SchoenbergI owe very, very much to Mozart; and if one studies, for instance, the way in which I write for string quartet, then one cannot deny that I have learned this directly from Mozart. And I am proud of it!
Arnold SchoenbergMusic is only understood when one goes away singing it and only loved when one falls asleep with it in one's head, and finds it still there on waking up the next morning.
Arnold SchoenbergGreat art must proceed to precision and brevity. It presupposes the alert mind of an educated listener who, in a singleact of thinking, includes with every concept all associations pertaining to the complex.
Arnold SchoenbergI have never seen faces, but because I have looked people in the eye, only their gazes.
Arnold SchoenbergI never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don't know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words.
Arnold SchoenbergThe principal function of form is to advance our understanding. It is the organization of a piece which helps the listener to keep the idea in mind, to follow its development, its growth, its elaboration, its fate.
Arnold Schoenberg