When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
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.
To write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.
A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.
I have become a different person. I don't know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.