The attraction of the virtuoso for the public is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always the hope that something dangerous may happen.

First of all, ladies and gentlemen, you must forget that you are singers.

People come to music to seek oblivion: is that not also a form of deception?

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

He was the incomparable painter of mystery, silence, and the infinite, of the passing cloud, and the sunlit shimmer of the waves-subleties which none before him had been capable of suggesting.

The sound of the sea, the curve of a horizon, wind in leaves, the cry of a bird leave manifold impression in us. And suddenly, without our wishing it at all, one of these memories spills from us and finds expression in musical language...I want to sing my interior landscape with the simple artlessness of a child.

I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.