It is the only one in existence that might conceivably have been composed by God. - Neville Cardus

Sibelius justified the austerity of his old age by saying that while other composers were engaged in manufacturing cocktails, he offered the public pure cold water.

If a German or an Austrian, a Greek or a Bashibazouk, had composed Gerontius, the whole world would have by now admitted its qualities.

A great composition to me is ... an incarnation of a genius, of all that was ever in him of the slightest consequence.