Discipline, work. Work, discipline.
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
But it's peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.
I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.
If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.
Life's been nothing but paperwork.