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

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

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.

I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world.

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.

It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.

Even in winter it shall be green in my heart.