The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That's what musicians are.

I liked your opera. I think I will set it to music.

I shall hear in heaven.

Everything should be at once surprising and inevitable.

Let your deafness no longer be a secret - even in art.

He that divines the secret of my music is freed from the unhappiness that haunts the whole world of men.

I carry my thoughts about me for a long time, often a very long time, before I write them down; meanwhile my memory is so faithful that I am sure never to forget, not even in years, a theme that has once occurred to me.