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?

Treasures are no longer to be got by instrumental art.

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.

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

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

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.

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?