The tea is ice-cold, the room grows colder and colder, but I grow warmer and warmer.
Is an artist much more than a beggar?
I will yield to popular demands only insofar as they do not betray my own convictions.
My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to continue living for art.
Composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound.
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?