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.

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

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.

Art is the most beautiful deception of all!

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.

Beauty seems to strike some people as a personal affront.

In opera, there is always too much singing.