Handel understands effect better than any of us -- when he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt.

My dear sister! I’m amazed to discover that you can compose so delightfully. In a word, your Lied is beautiful. You must compose more often.

I have never written the music that was in my heart to write; perhaps I never shall with this brain and these fingers, but I know that hereafter it will be written; when instead of these few inlets of the senses through which we now secure impressions from without, there shall be a flood of impressions from all sides; and instead of these few tones of our little octave, there shall be an infinite scale of harmonies - for I feel it - I am sure of it. This world of music, whose borders even now I have scarcely entered, is a reality, is immortal.

Melody is the essence of music.

I write [music] as a sow piddles.

I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.

I too had to work hard, so as not to have to work hard any longer.