Time is the best of critics; and patience the best of teachers.

I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere.

Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!

The earth is suffocating... Swear to make them cut me open, so that I won't be buried alive.

Here, whatever is not boring is not English.

My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos . . . in this respect this is a savage country.

If I were still stupider than I am, I should think myself at the apex of my career; yet I know how much I still lack, to reach perfection; I see it the more clearly now that I live only among first-rank artists and know what each one of them lacks.