Only the flint of a man's mind can strike fire in music.

Even in poverty I lived like a king for I tell you that nobility is the thing that makes a king

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

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

What is to reach the heart must come from above; if it does not come from thence, it will be nothing but notes, body without spirit.

In the world of art, as in the whole of creation, freedom and progress are the main objectives.

It is the power of music to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer.