At Vienna, one of the audience affirmed publicly that my performance was not surprising, for he had distinctly seen, while I was playing my variations, the devil at my elbow, directing my arm and guiding my bow. My resemblance to the devil was a proof of my origin.

To disappear your complete self into a character is quite difficult. I've tried it 85 times, and I've succeeded two or three times.

For me, the subject is of secondary importance: I want to convey what is alive between me and the subject.

But I have always thought that these tulips must have had names. They were red, and orange and red, and red and orange and yellow, like the ember in a nursery fire of a winter's evening. I remember them.

There's an old saying: 'No piece of writing is ever finished, it's just abandoned.' But my own rule is: No piece of work is done until you want to kill everyone involved in the publishing process, especially yourself.

In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live.