Maurice Ravel

“Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.”

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.”

“The only love affair I have ever had was with music.”

“I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces.”

“My objective is technical perfection. I can strive unceasingly for it. I may not achieve it, but I can strive for it.”

“I have written a masterpiece. Unfortunately, there is no music in it.”

“Does it matter if my music is artificial? It is, in fact, artificial by essence.”

“We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art.”

“My only mistress is music.”

“I am not a 'modern' composer in the ordinary sense of the term.”

“Remember that I am Basque and that my name is Ravel and not Ravet.”