“The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.”

“With the coming of spring, I am calm again.”

“Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.”

“If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.”

“In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.”

“The real art of conducting consists in transitions.”

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves”

“Love, like fire, goes out without fuel.”

“She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.”

“Life at the edge of the world, it was felt, could go on forever.”

“I always wanted to be a farmer. There is a tradition of that in my family.”

“Tradition has made women cowardly.”