Maurice Ravel

The only love affair I have ever had was with music.

— Maurice Ravel

We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art

— Maurice Ravel

My intention here is to make it clear that not a single cell of my composition, here in regard to The Raven,…

— Maurice Ravel

Why become a second-rate Ravel when you're already a first-rate Gershwin?

— Maurice Ravel

“Does it not occur to people that I might be artificial by nature?”

— Maurice Ravel

I begin by considering an effect.

— Maurice Ravel

I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces.

— Maurice Ravel

I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the…

— Maurice Ravel

Tell me that not everything I wrote was bad.

— Maurice Ravel

To George Gershwin, on refusinghim as a pupil: You would only lose the spontaneous quality of your melody, and end by writing…

— Maurice Ravel

Remember that I wrote a pavane for a dead princess, and not a dead pavane for a princess!

— Maurice Ravel

For Debussy the musician and the man I have had profound admiration, but by nature I'm different from him. I think I…

— Maurice Ravel

You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.

— Maurice Ravel

In fact, the influence of Schoenberg may be overwhelming on his followers, but the significance of his art is to be identified…

— Maurice Ravel

If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music.

— Maurice Ravel

I do not ask for my music to be interpreted, but only for it to be played.

— Maurice Ravel

Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.

— Maurice Ravel