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

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

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

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.

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.

There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something oneself and then listening to it.

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.