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'Free will? There's no such thing: not for the artist. Of all living mortals he's the most unfree; stands powerless in face of his own powers. In other words they possess him, not he them. And are capable of hounding him on against his will, he with as little strength to resist them as a dry straw the wind...
Art? Let no one talk to me of art. There are times when I'm inclined to see it as a kind of bane: a curse laid on those unfortunates who are doomed to practise it. Quite certainly a species of madness. And none so mad as I!'
Attributed to Richard Wagner in The Young Cosima by Henry Handel Richardson.
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