The three most celebrated doctors on the island have been to see me. One sniffed at what I spat, the second tapped where I spat from, and the third sounded me and listened as I spat. The first said I was dead, the second that I was dying, and the third that I’m going to […]

Here, whatever is not boring is not English.

The population here is ugly, but apparently good-natured. On the other hand the cows are magnificent, but apparently inclined to gore people. – (on Scotland)

After a rest in Edinburgh, where, passing a music-shop, I heard some blind man playing a mazurka of mine…

Art, here, means painting, sculpture and architecture. Music is not art and is not called art… Music is a profession, not an art, and no one speaks or writes of any musician as an artist… These queer folk play for the sake of beauty, but to teach them decent things is a joke. – (on […]

It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.

I have met a great celebrity, Mme Dudevant, known as George Sand… Her appearance is not to my liking. Indeed there is something about her which positively repels me… What an unattractive person La Sand is… Is she really a woman? I’m inclined to doubt it.

I don’t know how it is, but the Germans are amazed at me – and I am amazed at them for finding anything to be amazed about! They want me to give another concert but I have no desire to do so. You cannot imagine what a torture the three days before a public appearance […]

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness. And yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.

…So surrounded by the boredom of conventionalities, that it is all one to them whether music is good or bad, since they have to hear it from morning till night. For here they have flower-shows with music, dinners with music, sales with music… – (on the British)