In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.

To write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.

I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.

If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.

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.

You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.

It is strange how one feels drawn forward without knowing at first where one is going.