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

I tell my piano the things I used to tell you

There are certain times when I feel more inspired, filled with a strong power that forces me to listen to my inner voice, and when I feel more need than ever for a Pleyel piano.

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.

I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi.

As long as I have health and strength, I will gladly work all my days.

Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?