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

Love guards the heart from the abyss.

To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.

Music is my life and my life is music. Anyone who does not understand this is not worthy of God.

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

When I am at peace with myself . . . then thoughts flow into me most easily and at their best. Where they come from and how - that I cannot say . . . I'd be willing to work forever and forever if I were permitted to write only such music as I want to write and can write - which I myself think good.

A bachelor, in my opinion, is only half alive.