It may be a good thing to copy reality; but to invent reality is much, much better.

It is better to invert reality than to copy it.

The artist must yield himself to his own inspiration... I should compose with utter confidence a subject that set my musical blood going, even though it were condemned by all other artists as anti-musical.

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

The artist must yield himself to his own inspiraton, and if he has a true talent, no one knows and feels better than he what suits him.

Our mistake, you see, was to write interminable large operas, which had to fill an entire evening. And now along comes someone with a one or two-act opera without all that pompous nonsense - that was a happy reform.

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