“You are the music while the music lasts.”

“music heard so deeplyThat it is not heard at all, butyou are the musicWhile the music lasts.”

“Words move, music movesOnly in time; but that which is only livingCan only die. Words, after speech, reachInto the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,Can words or music reachThe stillness...”

“There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.”

“For I have known them all already,known them all.Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;I know the voices dying with a dying fall,Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?”

“What profession is more trying than that of author? After you finish a piece of work it only seems good to you for a few weeks; or if it seems good at all you are convinced that it is the last you will be able to write; and if it seems bad you wonder whether everything you have done isn’t poor stuff really; and it is one kind of agony while you are writing, and another kind when you aren’t.”

“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?”