No one understands another's grief, no one understands another's joy... My music is the product of my talent and my misery. And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like best.

Every night when I go to bed, I hope that I may never wake again, and every morning renews my grief.

When all hopes of recognition or honor have faded into distant memory, when purity of heart meets sorrow of mind, when all the world seems to walk in blindness and yet a man works without wearying for that which he loves...only in this moment is passion truly understood

No one understands another's grief, no one understands another's joy... My music is the product of my talent and my misery. And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like best.

I am in the world only for the purpose of composing.

No one really understands the grief or joy of another. We always imagine that we are approaching some other, but our lines of travel are actually parallel.

I am composing like a god, as if it simply had to be done as it has been done.