I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little.

To George Gershwin, on refusinghim as a pupil: You would only lose the spontaneous quality of your melody, and end by writing bad Ravel.

I do not ask for my music to be interpreted, but only for it to be played.

If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music.

We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art

Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.

The only love affair I have ever had was with music.