There is nothing more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little - the book of Nature.

Beauty seems to strike some people as a personal affront.

I have a horror of sentimentality, and I cannot forget that its name is Saint-Saëns.

Do not allow the accents in the brass to produce space between the notes.

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

But music, don't you know, is a dream from which the veils have been lifted. It's not even the expression of a feeling, it's the feeling itself.

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.