Inspiration and ideas only come to me when I have not had a woman in a very long time... Ballads, polonaises, even a whole concerto may have been lost forever up your des durka, I can't tell you how many. I have been so deeply engulfed in my love for you I have hardly created anything.

The century of airplanes has a right to its own music.

If we look at the works of JS Bach ... on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered.

Anyone who calls my music "impressionist" is an imbecile.

The age of automobiles and aeroplanes cannot express itself in the same manner as did the age of the diligence.

[on Richard Wagner] A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.

Extreme complication is contrary to art.