Another significant influence, other than Chabrier - is from Satie, who had a notable effect on Debussy, on myself, and, to tell the truth, on the majority of modern French composers.
– 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 have always personally followed a direction opposed to that of the symbolism of Debussy.
– Maurice Ravel
I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little.
– 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 look like a moor.
– Maurice Ravel
It is beautiful; it is beautiful after all; I have said nothing; I leave nothing. I have not said what I wanted to say. I have so much more to say.
– Maurice Ravel
Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.
– Maurice Ravel
My intention here is to make it clear that not a single cell of my composition, here in regard to The Raven, is found by chance or intuition, that the composition moved towards perfection with the precision and inevitability of a mathematical equation.
– Maurice Ravel
Remember that I wrote a pavane for a dead princess, and not a dead pavane for a princess!
– 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
You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.