Talent works, genius creates.

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

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.

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.

We have learned to express the more delicate nuances of feeling by penetrating more deeply into the mysteries of harmony.

For me, music is always the language which permits one to converse with the Beyond.

We may be sure that a genius like Mozart, were he born today, would write concertos like Chopin and not like Mozart.