I change many things, discard others, and try again and again until I am satisfied; then, in my head, I being to elaborate the work in its breadth, its narrowness, its height, its depth...I hear and see the image in front of me from every angle as if it had been cast and only the labour of writing it down remains.

I know of no more sacred duty than to rear and educate a child.

Do you think I give a damn about your and your pathetic violin?

Music is indeed the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

Art always demands of us something new.

My heart is full of many things there are moments when I feel that speech is nothing after all.

But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life - it was only my art that held me back.