Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.

There ought to be only one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is one must be half a tradesman.

Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you. Oh how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing.

Music is the electric soil in which the spirit thinks, lives and invents. All that's electrical stimulates the mind to flowing surging musical creation. I am electrical by nature.

You ask me where I get my ideas. That I cannot tell you with certainty. They come unsummoned, directly, indirectly - I could seize them with my hands - out in the open air, in the woods, while walking, in the silence of the nights, at dawn, excited by moods which are translated by the poet into words, by me into tones that sound and roar and storm about me till I have set them down in notes.

I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet.

Mistakes - mistakes - you yourself are a unique mistake!