To Me The Highest Thing,

Whoever Tells A Lie Is Not Pure Of Heart, And Such A Person Can Not Cook A Clean Soup.

Oh You Men Who Think Or Say That I Am Malevolent, Stubborn, Or Misanthropic, How Greatly Do You Wrong Me. You Do Not Know The Secret Cause Which Makes Me Seem That Way To You. Oh How Harshly Was I Flung Back By The Doubly Sad Experience Of My Bad Hearing.

Fate Gave To Man The Courage Of Endurance.

I Change Many Things, Discard Others, And Try Again And Again Until I Am Satisfied; Then, In My Head, I Being To Elaborate The Work In Its Breadth, Its Narrowness, Its Height, Its Depth...i Hear And See The Image In Front Of Me From Every Angle As If It Had Been Cast And Only The Labour Of Writing It Down Remains.

You Ask Me Where I Get My Ideas. That I Cannot Tell You With Certainty. They Come Unsummoned, Directly, Indirectly - I Could Seize Them With My Hands - Out In The Open Air, In The Woods, While Walking, In The Silence Of The Nights, At Dawn, Excited By Moods Which Are Translated By The Poet Into Words, By Me Into Tones That Sound And Roar And Storm About Me Till I Have Set Them Down In Notes.