Treasures are no longer to be got by instrumental art.

If I have known much trouble in my youth, I have also known much joy.

I cannot give a single concert at which I do not play one piece after the other in an agony of terror because my memory threatens to fail me. This fear torments me for days beforehand.

I cannot be so bad when everybody is so fond of me.

My health may be better preserved if I exert myself less, but in the end doesn't each person give his life for his calling?

How often have I actually discovered in myself that enthusiasm raises the artist above himself, how in an ordinary mood one would not have been able to accomplish many of the things for which enthusiasm lends one everything, energy, fire.

I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?