Art is the most beautiful deception of all! And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing, sad as a factory.

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

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

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.

Composers aren't daring enough. They're afraid of that sacred idol called 'common sense', which is the most dreadful thing I know - after all, it's no more than a religion founded to excuse the ubiquity of imbeciles!

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