When reason fails, the devil helps!

If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment-as well as the prison.

Never mind a little dirt, if the goal is splendid!

The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.

As for me, this is my story: I worked and was tortured. You know what it means to compose? No, thank God, you do not! I believe you have never written to order, by the yard, and have never experienced that hellish torture.

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.

In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality.