"I had to become a composer, because I had nothing else to do."

"Ah how could I possibly admit such an infirmity in the one sense which should have been more perfect in me than in others[?]"

"I live only in my music, and I have scarcely begun a work when I am already thinking of the next."

"The more I think of it, the more I feel that there is something wrong with the whole business of publishing. The publishers are the real thieves."

"Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce."