One can’t have everything in this world; be content with the greatest of joys: health.

Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano.

I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself.

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, and yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.

Having nothing to do, I am correcting the Paris edition of Bach; not only the engraver's mistakes, but also the mistakes hallowed by those who are supposed to understand Bach (I have no pretensions to understand better, but I do think that sometimes I can guess).

It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.

If I were still stupider than I am, I should think myself at the apex of my career; yet I know how much I still lack, to reach perfection; I see it the more clearly now that I live only among first-rank artists and know what each one of them lacks.