The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.

Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

I don't choose what I compose. It chooses me.

Discipline, work. Work, discipline.

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

The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.