I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?
Why hurry over beautiful things? Why not linger and enjoy them?
My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to continue living for art.
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.
There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something oneself and then listening to it.
I wish to lead a life free from care, and I see that I shall be unhappy if I cannot always work at my art.
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 do not want horses or diamonds - I am happy in possessing you.
My health may be better preserved if I exert myself less, but in the end doesn't each person give his life for his calling?
I cannot be so bad when everybody is so fond of me.
Is an artist much more than a beggar?
If I have known much trouble in my youth, I have also known much joy.
Treasures are no longer to be got by instrumental art.
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.
The tea is ice-cold, the room grows colder and colder, but I grow warmer and warmer.
You appear in the Novelletten in every possible circumstance, in every irresistible form... They could only be written by one who knows such eyes as yours and has touched such lips as yours.
