The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.

Composers combine notes, that's all.

I wonder if memory is true, and I know that it cannot be, but that one lives by memory nevertheless and not by truth.

An audience is an abstraction; it has no taste. It must depend on the only person who has (pardon, should have), the conductor.

Nothing is likely about masterpieces, least of all whether there will be any.

To continue in one path is to go backward.