My sweet rose, my delicate flower, my lily of lilies, it is perhaps in prison that I am going to test the power of love. I am going to see if I cannot make the bitter warders sweet by the intensity of the love I bear you. I have had moments when I thought it would be wise to separate. Ah! Moments of weakness and madness! Now I see that would have mutilated my life, ruined my art, broken the musical chords which make a perfect soul. Even covered with mud I shall praise you, from the deepest abysses I shall cry to you. In my solitude you will be with me.

I quite agree with Dr. Nordau's assertion that all men of genius are insane, but Dr. Nordau forgets that all sane people are idiots.

After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed and mourning over tragedies that were not my own.

I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame.

Though one can dine in New York, one could not dwell there.

I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips