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

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

Bach is an astronomer, discovering the most marvellous stars. Beethoven challenges the universe. I only try to express the soul and the heart of man.

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

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.

Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano.

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.