There are few people living who are not flattered by the request for an autograph, and it may be taken as axiomatic that when they do not want this signature of yours they do not want you.

A bad performance haunts the artist like a nightmare for days and days, and the memory of it is erased only by a good performance.

You may read music as fluently as you read a newspaper, but it does not make an artist of you, and I count it just as clever to be a good stenographer.

The most vigilant self-criticism of course is necessary, but the time comes when the artist must tell himself he is good or he will go under.