"My favourite musician happens to be the same as Shakespeare's: John Dowland. His songs are sorrowful but heal the soul by their sweetness and courage."

"True love cannot be changed, Though delight from desert Be estranged. Farewell, farewell But yet or ere I part (O cruel), Kiss me sweet, kiss me sweet my jewel."

"Come again: sweet love doth now invite, Thy graces that refrain, To do me due delight, To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die, With thee again in sweetest sympathy."

"Spanking Jack was so comely, so pleasant, so jolly, Though winds blew great guns, still he ’d whistle and sing; Jack loved his friend, and was true to his Molly, And if honour gives greatness, was great as a king."

"For a soldier I listed, to grow great in fame. And be shot at for sixpence a day."

"There ’s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor Jack."

"Did you ever hear of Captain Wattle? He was all for love, and a little for the bottle."

"His form was of the manliest beauty, His heart was kind and soft; Faithful below he did his duty, But now he ’s gone aloft."

"And also there’s a little star So white a virgin’s it must be:— Perhaps the lamp my love in heaven Hangs out to light the way for me."

"“Ahoy! and Oho, and it’s who’s for the ferry?” (The brier’s in bud and the sun going down:) “And I’ll row ye so quick and I’ll row ye so steady, And ’t is but a penny to Twickenham Town."

"Death! Plop. The barges down in the river flop. Flop, plop, Above, beneath. From the slimy branches the grey drips drop... To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop... And my head shrieks--"Stop" And my heart shrieks--"Die"..."

"I have read a rondeau or rondel by Marzials in the Athenaeum beginning and ending "When I see you": it was very graceful and shewing an art and finish rare in English verse. This makes me the more astonished about Flop flop."

"[T]he handsomest, the wittiest, the most brilliant and the most charming of poets. On the last occasion when I happened to catch sight of him, looking into a case of stuffed birds at South Kensington Museum, he had eaten five large chocolate creams in the space of two minutes. He had a career tragic in the extreme and, as I believe, is now dead."

"Every poet hopes that after-times Shall set some value on his votive lay."

"O Twilight! Spirit that dost render birth To dim enchantments; melting heaven with earth, Leaving on craggy hills and running streams A softness like the atmosphere of dreams."

"For death and life, in ceaseless strife, Beat wild on this world’s shore, And all our calm is in that balm— Not lost but gone before."

"Too innocent for coquetry, too fond for idle scorning— Oh friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning."

"I am listening for the voices Which I heard in days of old."

"Love not! love not! ye hopeless sons of clay; Hope’s gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers— Things that are made to fade and fall away, Ere they have blossomed for a few short hours."

"A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers; There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth of woman’s tears."

"We have been friends together In sunshine and in shade. Since first beneath the chestnut-tree In fancy we played But coldness dwells within thine heart A cloud is on thy brow. We have been friends together,— Shall a light word part us now?"

"The fallyng out of faithfull frends is the renuyng of loue."

"Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage, Whereon many play their parts; the lookers-on, the sage Philosophers are, saith he, whose part is to learn The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to discern."

"The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more."

"Art for art's sake has never flourished in England. We are often called inartistic because our art is unconscious. Our drama and poetry, like our laws and our constitution, have evolved by accident while we thought we were doing something else, and so it will be with music. The composer must not shut himself up and think about art, he must live with his fellows and make his art an expression of the whole life of the community – if we seek for art we shall not find it."

"Before going any further may we take it that the object of art is to obtain a partial revelation of that which is beyond human senses and human faculties – of that, in fact, which is spiritual? And that the means which we employ to induce this revelation are those very senses and faculties themselves?"

"The art of music above all the other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation."

"The business of finding a nation's soul is a long and slow one at the best and a great many prophets must be slain in the course of it. Perhaps when we have slain enough prophets future generations will begin to build their tombs."

"One of the advantages of being over forty is that one begins to learn the difference between knowing and realising."

"Music, being identical with heaven, isn't a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It's a condition of eternity."

"The enormity of the universe revealed by science cannot readily be grasped by the human brain, but the music of The Planets enables the mind to acquire some comprehension of the vastness of space where rational understanding fails."

"If nobody likes your work, you have to go on just for the sake of the work. And you're in no danger of letting the public make you repeat yourself. Every artist ought to pray that he may not be "a success". If he's a failure he stands a good chance of concentrating upon the best work of which he's capable."

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

"Always ask for advice but never take it."

"Film composing is a splendid discipline, and I recommend a course of it to all composition teachers whose pupils are apt to be dawdling in their ideas, or whose every bar is sacred and must not be cut or altered."

"Film contains potentialities for the combination of all the arts such as Wagner never dreamt of."

"There [is] a feeling of recognition, as of meeting an old friend, which comes to us all in the face of great artistic experiences. I had the same experience when I first heard an English folksong, when I first saw Michelangelo's Day and Night, when I suddenly came upon Stonehenge or had my first sight of New York City – the intuition that I had been there already."

"The attitude of foreign to English musicians is unsympathetic, self-opinionated and pedantic. They believe that their tradition is the only one (this is specially true of the Viennese) and that anything that is not in accordance with that tradition is "wrong" and arises from insular ignorance."

"I don't know whether I like it, but it's what I meant."

"In the next world, I shan't be doing music, with all the striving and disappointments. I shall be being it."

"The audience is requested not to refrain from talking during the overture. Otherwise they will know all the tunes before the opera begins."

"It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music."

"Handel is one of the giants of musical history. His is happy, confident, melodic music imbued with the grace of the Italian vocal school, an easy fluency in German contrapuntal writing and the English choral tradition inherited from Purcell."

"Handel is so great and so simple that no one but a professional musician is unable to understand him."

"Handel paralysed music in England for generations and they have not yet quite got over him."

"Every Englishman believes that Handel now occupies an important position in heaven. If so, le bon Dieu must feel toward him very much as Louis Treize felt toward Richelieu."

"Händel ist der unerreichte Meister aller Meister. Gehen Sie und lernen Sie von ihm, wie gewaltige Wirkungen mit einfachen Mitteln zu erreichen ist."

"Händel ist der größte Komponist, der je lebte. Ich würde meine Kopfbedeckung abnehmen und auf seinem Grab knien."