Modesty is a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.

Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.

Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.

If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.

Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

All art is a revolt against man’s fate.

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

I cannot live without books, but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mold, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.

If a king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.

The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.