To regret the past, to hope in the future, and never to be satisfied with the present: that is what I spend my whole life doing

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.'

Handel is only fourth rate. He's not even interesting.

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

We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavoring to meet it halfway, we easily become indirect and apathetic.

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

I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o'clock in the morning and Mesdames les Muses have learned to be on time for that rendezvous.