Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.

The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.

I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas; I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.

I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life.

A true personality . . . is like a robust organism that, with unconscious sureness, seeks out and digests the nourishment appropriate to it and vigorously rejects that which is unsuitable.

Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.