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.

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

A strange adventure befell me while I was playing my Sonata in B flat minor before some English friends. I had played the Allegro and the Scherzo more or less correctly. I was about to attack the March when suddenly I saw arising from the body of my piano those cursed creatures which had appeared to me one lugubrious night at the Chartreuse. I had to leave for one instant to pull myself together after which I continued without saying anything.

They want me to give another concert but I have no desire to do so. You cannot imagine what a torture the three days before a public appearance are to me.

The last thing is simplicity. After having gone through all the difficulties, having played an endless number of notes, it is simplicity that matters, with all its charm. It is the final seal on Art. Anyone who strives for this to begin with will be disappointed. You cannot begin at the end.

Oh, how miserable it is to have no one to share your sorrows and joys, and, when your heart is heavy, to have no soul to whom you can pour out your woes.

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.