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.

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!

Vienna is a handsome, lively city, and pleases me exceedingly.

I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself.

Among the numerous pleasures of Vienna the hotel evenings are famous. During supper Strauss or Lanner play waltzes...After every waltz they get huge applause; and if they play a Quodlibet, or jumble of opera, song and dance, the hearers are so overjoyed that they don't know what to do with themselves. It shows the corrupt taste of the Viennese public.

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

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