Gustav Mahler

"The content of my entire life is poured into my symphonies. In them I have expressed all my experiences and suffering. It is truth and poetry set to music. If someone knew how to read it well my whole life would be transparent to him. So closely entwined are creating and living, for me, that it seems to me if henceforth my life were to flow as peaceably as a brook in a meadow I could no longer make anything of value." Gustav Mahler

"Art should be an ax for the frozen ocean in us." Franz Kaftka

"As a conductor and a composer I am sure of everything. But as a human being I am riddled with doubt. To be human is to be uncertain." Gustav Mahler

"Strange; when I hear music, even while I am conducting, I hear quite specific answers to all my questions, and am completely clear and certain, or rathr I feel quite distinctly that they are not questions at all." Gustav Mahler

"Creation is a mystical process. The residue of mystery always remains, even for the creator. I find in the end that one does not compose, one is being composed." Gustav Mahler

"I believe in the end art's purpose is deliverence and uplift from suffering." Gustav Mahler

"In order to express yourself in a piece of art you need to be secure in yourself, know yourself, have confidence in yourself, finally, love yourself." Gustav Mahler