I carry a deep sadness of the heart which must now and then break out in sound.

Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.

The first impulse of a great number of civilized musicians... is to protest ourdeclaration that the music in Hungary belongs to the Gypsies.

My mind and fingers have worked like the damned. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them. I devour them with fury.

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.

It is impossible to imagine a more complete fusion with nature than that of the Gypsy.

Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.