Claude Debussy

“I am more and more convinced that music is not, in essence, a thing which can be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms.”

“Music is the space between the notes.”

“I love music passionately. And because I love it, I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.”

“Wagner is a beautiful sunset that is mistaken for a dawn.”

“Any sounds in any combination and in any succession are henceforth free to be used in a musical continuity.”

“Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.”

“Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes.”

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

“Art is the most beautiful of all lies.”

“Listen to no one's advice except that of the wind in the trees. That can recount the whole history of mankind.”

“Music should humbly seek to please; within these limits great beauty may perhaps be found.”

“To be a great artist you need to be a great thief.”

“There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law.”