When I feel the urge to compose, I begin byappealing directly to my Maker and I first ask Him the three most important questions pertaining to our life here in this worldöwhence, wherefore, whither.

-Brahms,Johannes
Quoted in  A Hopkins Music  All  Around Me (1967).

Soit donc que vous composiez, soit donc que vous jouiez, ne pensez non plus au spectateur que s'il n'existait pas. Imaginez sur le bord du the¤  a"  tre, un grand mur qui vous se¤  pare du parterre; jouez comme si la toile ne se levait pas. Whether you compose or act, think no more of the spectator than if he did not exist. Imagine at the edge of the stage a large wall which separates you from the orchestra; act as if the curtain never rose.

-Diderot, Denis
  Discours sur la poe¤  sie dramatique, introducing the theatrical concept of the'fourth wall'.

Writing is a formof therapy; sometimes Iwonder howall these people who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.

-Greene, (Henry) Graham
  Ways of Escape, ch.9.

   Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.

-Holst, GustavTheodore
  Letter to W G  Whittaker.

Before I compose a piece, I walk round it several times, accompanied by myself.

-Satie, Erik Alfred Leslie
Quoted in Bulletin des e¤  ditions musicales (1913).