Great art likes chains. The greatest artists have created art within bounds. Or else they have created their own chains.

I adore tradition. I cannot stand habit. Simply to repeat is nothing, also to destroy is nothing. Tradition is never interrupted, we are always evolving but never interrupted.

Without order there can be no inner satisfaction. Without inner satisfaction there can be no freedom. Without freedom there is no joy.

[On the music of Richard Strauss:] Too many notes!

Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult.

In music everything is prolonged, everything is edified, and when the enchantment has ceased, we are still bathed in its clarity; solitude is accompanied by a new hope between pity for ourselves - which makes us more indulgent and more understanding - and the certitude of finding something again, that which lives for ever in music.

Do nothing for effect. Do it for truth.