[on Richard Wagner] A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.
People don't very much like things that are beautiful - they are so far from their nasty little minds.
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!
I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naive candour of a child.
Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.
Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.