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

There is nothing more musical than a sunset.

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

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

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

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.

The trouble with the opera is there's always to much singing.