We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance.

I am highly susceptible to the force of all truly religious music, especially to the music of my own church, the church of Shelley, Michelangelo, and Beethoven.

I object to publishers: the one service they have done me is to teach me to do without them. They combine commercial rascality with artistic touchiness and pettishness, without being either good business men or fine judges of literature.

The joy in life is to be used for a purpose. I want to be used up when I die.

If I refuse to allow my leg to be amputated, its mortification and my death may prove that I was wrong; but if I let the leg go, nobody can ever prove that it would not have mortified had I been obstinate. Operation is therefore the safe side for the surgeon as well as the lucrative side.

From Mozart I learnt to say important things in a conversational way.