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.

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

To the unmusical hearer a note on the gong means dinner, this perhaps often is menacing enough.

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

But in the next world I shan't be doing music, with all the striving and disappointments. I shall be being it.

Beethoven was ahead of the times, Bach behind them.

Wagner used to read the libretti of his operas to his friends; I am glad I was not there.