You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods.

I am so fresh in soul and spirit that life gushes and bubbles around me in a thousand springs.

My heart pounds sickeningly and I turn pale... I often feel as if I were dead... I seem to be losing my mind.

My indifference to money and my spendthrift ways are disgraceful. You have no idea how reckless I am; how often I practically throw money out of the window. I am always making good resolutions, but the next minute I forget and give the waiter eightpence.

For me Wagner is impossible... he talks without ever stopping. One can't just talk all the time.

When young, one learns his craftsmanship, may become a young master, and it is youth that is most auspicious for developing certain skills.

My whole life has been a twenty years struggle between poetry and prose, or, if you like to call it so, Music and Law.