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

Nothing is better than music; when it takes us out of time, it has done more for us than we have the right to hope for: it has broadened the limits of our sorrowful life, it has lit up the sweetness of our hours of happiness by effacing the pettinesses that diminish us, bringing us back pure and new to what was, what will be, what music has created for us.

Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.

Music was not invented by the composer, but found.

The art of music is so deep and profound that to approach it very seriously only is not enough. One must approach music with a serious rigor and, at the same time, with a great, affectionate joy.

It is nothing to succeed if one has not taken great trouble, and it is nothing to fail if one has done the best one could.

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.