Of course I have used dissonance in my time, but there has been too much dissonance. Bach used dissonance as good salt for his music. Others applied pepper, seasoned the dishes more and more highly, till all healthy appetites were sick and until the music was nothing but pepper.

I want nothing better, more flexible or more complete than the sonata form, which contains everything necessary for my structural purposes.

I played rather well - in any case, jauntily. My success was rather great and, I should say, no doubt unexpected.

I thought with fury of the wonderful American orchestras that cared nothing for my music; of the critics who repeated for the hundredth time, 'Beethoven is a great composer,' while balking violently at new works; of the managers who arranged long tours for artists playing the same hackneyed programs fifty times over.

My mother had to explain that one couldn't compose a Liszt rhapsody because it was a piece of music that Liszt himself had composed.

I can't think of a time over the last 17 years where the phones have been ringing off the hook quite as much as they have recently.