What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.

What force is more potent than love?

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.

The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament.

My music is best understood by children and animals.

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time.

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.