The art of music above all the other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation.

A supreme composer can only come out of a musical nation.

I have always found it difficult to study. I have learnt almost entirely what I have learnt by trying it out on the dog.

There is no reason why an atheist could not write a good Mass.

The great men of music close periods; they do not inaugurate them. The pioneer work, the finding of new paths, is left to smaller men.

I suppose it never occurs to these people that a man might just want to write a piece of music.

The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more.