Oh, you happy sons of the North who have been reared at the bosom of Bach, how I envy you!

It is better to invert reality than to copy it.

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.

Through care taken over trends, the desire to be novel and affectation knowledge, we repudiate our art, our instinct, our own way of doing things; it is absurd and stupid

I deny that either singers or conductors can "create" or work creatively - this, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss.

I have striven for perfection, it has always eluded me, but I surely had an obligation to make one more try.