"To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also."

"In composing this music [Petrushka], I had a clear vision of a puppet, suddenly brought to life, and who also tries the patience of the orchestra with cascades of diabolical arpeggios."

"I never repeat myself. I always try to find something new."

"Doomed to total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference, he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, of whose mines he had a perfect knowledge."

"What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators."