My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to continue living for art.

I will yield to popular demands only insofar as they do not betray my own convictions.

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?

You appear in the Novelletten in every possible circumstance, in every irresistible form... They could only be written by one who knows such eyes as yours and has touched such lips as yours.

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 wish to lead a life free from care, and I see that I shall be unhappy if I cannot always work at my art.

I do not want horses or diamonds - I am happy in possessing you.