Every great inspiration is but an experiment.

I don't write music for sissy ears.

Please don't try to make things nice! All the wrong notes are right. Just copy as I have -- I want it that way.

Everyone should have the opportunity of not being over-influenced.

Is not beauty in music too often confused with something which lets the ears lie back in an easy chair?

All melodious poets shall be hoarse as street ballads, when once the penetrating keynote of nature and spirit is sounded-the earth-beat, sea-beat, heart-beat, which make the tune to which the sun rolls, and the globule of blood and the sap of the trees.

If a poet knows more about a horse than he does about heaven, he might better stick to the horse, and some day the horse may carry him into heaven.