Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!

I am not fitted to give concerts. The audience intimidates me, I feel choked by its breath, paralyzed by its curious glances, struck dumb by all those strange faces.

After a rest in Edinburgh, where, passing a music-shop, I heard some blind man playing a mazurka of mine.

Nothing is more odious than music without hidden meaning.

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.

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.