23 Quotes by Maurice Ravel

I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little.

It is beautiful; it is beautiful after all; I have said nothing; I leave nothing. I have not said what I wanted to say. I have so much more to say.

Another significant influence, other than Chabrier - is from Satie, who had a notable effect on Debussy, on myself, and, to tell the truth, on the majority of modern French composers.

Why become a second-rate Ravel when you're already a first-rate Gershwin?

If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music.

Tell me that not everything I wrote was bad.

To George Gershwin, on refusinghim as a pupil: You would only lose the spontaneous quality of your melody, and end by writing bad Ravel.

I do not ask for my music to be interpreted, but only for it to be played.

I begin by considering an effect.