If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. therefore, respect every musician in his proper place.

My symphonies would have reached Opus 100 if I had but written them down... Sometimes I am so full of music, and so overflowing with melody, that I find it simply impossible to write down anything.

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.

Perhaps only a Genius can truly understand Genius.

An evil fate has deprived me of the full use of my right hand, so that I am not able to play my compositions as I feel them. The trouble with my hand is that certain fingers have become so weak, probably through writing and playing too much at one time, that I can hardly use them.

Let your intimate friends be chosen from such as are better informed than yourself.

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