It Is Not Enough That The Artist

To Render My Works Properly Requires A Combination Of Extreme Precision And Irresistible Verve, A Regulated Vehemence, A Dreamy Tenderness, And An Almost Morbid Melancholy.

It Is Difficult To Put Into Words What I Suffered-the Longing That Seemed To Be Tearing My Heart Out By The Roots, The Dreadful Sense Of Being Alone In An Empty Universe, The Agonies That Thrilled Through Me As If The Blood Were Running Ice-cold Through My Veins, The Disgust With Living, The Impossibility Of Dying. Shakespeare Himself Never Described This Torture; But He Counts It, In Hamlet, Among The Terrible Of All The Evils Of Existence. I Had Stopped Composing; My Mind Seemed To Become Feebler As My Feelings Grew More Intense. I Did Nothing. One Power Was Left To Me-to Suffer.

Bach Is Bach Just As God Is God.

A Feeble Mind, Conscious Of Its Own Feebleness, Grows Feeble Under That Very Consciousness. As Soon As The Power Of Fear Becomes Known To It, There Follows The Fear Of Fear, And, On The First Perturbation, Reason Abandons It.

The Luck Of Having Talent Is Not Enough; One Must Also Have A Talent For Luck.