"O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me."

"I will show the world that I am a great artist."

"I wish you health, and hope that you will soon be able to do something for art, so that I may be able to see you again. Farewell, I wish you well."

"Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken."

"Oh you people who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem so to you. From childhood on, my heart …"