It sometimes seems to me as if I do not belong to this world at all. I deplore music that engenders in people not love but madness: which rouses them to scornful laughter instead of lifting their thoughts to God.

There are eight girls in the house in which I am living, and practically all of them are good looking. You can realize that I am kept busy.

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

If only your pure and clean mind could touch me, dear Haydn, nobody has a greater reverence for you than I have.

I never force myself to be devout except when I feel so inspired, and never compose hymns of prayers unless I feel within me real and true devotion.

You believe happiness to be derived from the place in which once you have been happy, but in truth it is centered in ourselves.

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.