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

Only music clarifies, reconciles, and consoles. But it is not a straw just barely clutched at. It is a faithful friend, protector, and comforter, and for its sake alone, life in this world is worth living. Who knows, perhaps in heaven there will be no music. So let us live on the earth while we still have life!

Mozart is the highest, the culminating point that beauty has attained in the sphere of music.

Even in the works of the greatest master, the organic sequence can fail and then a skillful join must be made.

How can one express the indefinable sensations that one experiences while writing an instrumental composition that has no definite subject? It is a purely lyrical process. It is a musical confession of the soul, which unburdens itself through sounds just as a lyric poet expresses himself through poetry...As the poet Heine said, 'Where words leave off, music begins.'

Where the heart does not enter; there can be no music.

A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.