My Imagination Can Picture No Fairer Happiness

Composing Gives Me Great Pleasure... There Is Nothing That Surpasses The Joy Of Creation, If Only Because Through It One Wins Hours Of Self-forgetfulness, When One Lives In A World Of Sound.

Why Hurry Over Beautiful Things? Why Not Linger And Enjoy Them?

I Will Yield To Popular Demands Only Insofar As They Do Not Betray My Own Convictions.

How Often Have I Actually Discovered In Myself That Enthusiasm Raises The Artist Above Himself, How In An Ordinary Mood One Would Not Have Been Able To Accomplish Many Of The Things For Which Enthusiasm Lends One Everything, Energy, Fire.

I Cannot Give A Single Concert At Which I Do Not Play One Piece After The Other In An Agony Of Terror Because My Memory Threatens To Fail Me. This Fear Torments Me For Days Beforehand.