Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because no matter what public, or what pretty girl wanted it to be thus or thus; but to write solely as I myself thought best, and as it gave me pleasure.

It's not that music is too imprecise for words, but too precise.

First and foremost an artist should pay homage to grandness, honour and bow to it, and not try to extinguish the fierce flames of such, in an attempt to have his own feeble light shine brighter. When one isn't able to acknowledge greatness, I would really want to know how he endeavours to make me experience it.

The trombone is too sacred for frequent use.

Such a divine profession is art! When everything else looks so stale and disgustingly vacuous, so enthralls even the littlest real effort of art our innermost and carries us from town, from country, from earth, as that it must be truely a blessing of the Gods.

Life and art are not two different things.

This is what I think art is and what I demand of it: that it pull everyone in, that it show one person another's most intimate thoughts and feelings, that it throw open the window of the soul.