When I feel well and in a good humour, or when I am taking a drive or walking after a good meal, or in the night when I cannot sleep, thoughts crowd into my mind as easily as my mind might wish.

If people could see into my heart, I should almost feel ashamed - all there is cold, cold as ice.

You know that I become quite powerless whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument which I cannot bear.

The taste of death is upon my lips. I feel something that is not of this earth.

Believe me, my sole purpose is to make as much money as possible; for after good health it is the best thing to have.

The whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind so that I can survey it at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What delight this is I cannot tell!

I cannot write in verse, for I am no poet. I cannot arrange the parts of speech with such art as to produce effects of light and shade, for I am no painter. Even by signs and gestures I cannot express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer. But I can do so by means of sounds, for I am a musician.