When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.

England is so surrounded by the boredom of conventionalities, that it is all one to them whether music is good or bad, since they have to hear it from morning till night. For here they have flower-shows with music, dinners with music, sales with music.

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

A long time ago I decided that my universe will be the soul and heart of man.

Nothing is more beautiful than the sound of the guitar.

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

I am gay on the outside, especially among my own folk (I count Poles my own); but inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy, indifference - desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death; some kind of sweet peace, some kind of numbness, absent-mindedness.