The Official Bulletin declared that the Poles should be as proud of me as the Germans are of Mozart; obvious nonsense.

As something has involuntarily crept into my head through my eyes,I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong.

Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars.

All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here.

My manuscripts sleep, while I cannot, for I am covered with poultices.

Nothing is more odious than music without hidden meaning.

It's a huge Carthusian monastery, stuck down between rocks and sea, where you may imagine me, without white gloves or hair curling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. The cell is the shape of a tall coffin, with an enormous dusty vaulting, a small window... Bach, my scrawls and waste paper - silence - you could scream - there would still be silence. Indeed, I write to you from a strange place.