To be a great composer requires immense experience... One acquires this by listening not only to other men's work, but above all to one's own!

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

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

I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.

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

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

After a rest in Edinburgh, where, passing a music-shop, I heard some blind man playing a mazurka of mine.