What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.

I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya.

My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.

Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn.

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being?

I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music.

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.