Arnold Schoenberg

If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.

My music is not modern, it is merely badly played.

The only thing one can do with music is to love it.

A composer is a person who is driven by an irresistible urge to express himself.

Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.

I have always been more interested in what I have not yet done than in what I have done.

There is no new music, only music that is well or badly written.

Music is not for entertainment, but for edification.

Composing is a matter of necessity, not of choice.

My music is not 'modern,' it is merely 'new.'

The artist does not want to reproduce, but to produce.

The ear is the only true judge of music.

I write what I feel, and what I feel is what I am.

Music is a language that speaks to the soul.

The purpose of art is to express the inexpressible.

I am not a revolutionary. I am an evolutionist.

Music must not decorate, it must be.

The artist is merely a vessel through which the divine expresses itself.

My music is not difficult, it is merely unfamiliar.

The greatest art is that which is most misunderstood.