Listen to no one's advice except that of the wind in the trees. That can recount the whole history of mankind.

Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part.

The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.

The century of aeroplanes deserves its own music. As there are no precedents, I must create anew.

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

I am more and more convinced that music is not, in essence, a thing which can be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms.

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.