Madam, you ask me how I compose. I compose sitting down.

If that condition of mind and soul, which we call inspiration, lasted long without intermission, no artist could survive it. The strings would break and the instrument be shattered into fragments.

Music is an incomparably more powerful means and is a subtler language for expressing the thousand different moments of the soul's moods.

What I need is to believe in myself again — for my faith has been greatly undermined; it seems to me my role is over.

Mozart is the musical Christ.

I feel I shall live a long time.

I have put my whole soul into this work [The Pathetique Symphony] . . . You cannot imagine what joy I feel at the thought that my days are not yet over and that I may still accomplish much.