One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

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

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live.

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.

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

When I discovered that I had been made custodian of this gift, in my earliest childhood, I pledged myself to God to be worthy of it, but I have received uncovenanted mercies all my life. The custodian has too often kept faith on his all-too-worldly terms.