The language of music is common to all generations and nations; it is understood by everybody, since it is understood with the heart.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind.

Nothing primes inspiration more than necessity, whether it be the presence of a copyist waiting for your work or the prodding of an impresario tearing his hair.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the only musician who had as much knowledge asgenius, and as much genius as knowledge.

Music is a kind of harmonious language.

Eating, loving, singing, and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like bubbles of a bottle of champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool.

Answer them critics with silence and indifference. It works better, I assure you, than anger and argument. . . .