"It is a great error to suppose that my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a celebrated master in mu…"

"I have always composed with the greatest ease."

"I should like to know for what reason idleness is so popular with many young people that it is impossible to dissuade them from it either by words or by chastisements."

"I am not a man who can be easily intimidated."

"The only thing—I tell you this straight from the heart—that disgusts me in Salzburg is that one can't have any proper social intercourse with those people—and that music does not have a better reputat…"