Since Haydn, a symphony is no longer a simple affair, but a matter of life and death. - Johannes Brahms

I wish I could write to you as tenderly as I love you and tell you all the good things that I wish you. You are so infinitely dear to me, dearer than I can say... If things go on much longer as they are at present I shall have sometime to put you under glass or to have you set in gold. If only I could live in the same town with you and my parents... Do write me a nice letter soon. Your letters are like kisses.

Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.

Those who enjoy their own emotionally bad health and who habitually fill their own minds with the rank poisons of suspicion, jealousy and hatred, as a rule take umbrage at those who refuse to do likewise, and they find a perverted relief in trying to denigrate them. A pity. In so doing, such unfortunates are deceiving no self-thinking person, for they reveal much about themselves and little about their targets.