La musique commence là où la parole est impuissante à exprimer; la musique est faite pour l’inexprimable. (fr.)
Źródło: Pasteur Vallery-Radot, Lettres de Claude Debussy à sa femme Emma http://books.google.pl/books?id=BZsHAQAAMAAJ&q=La+musique+commence+l%C3%A0+o%C3%B9+la+parole+est+impuissante+%C3%A0+exprimer+%3B+la+musique+est+faite+pour+l'inexprimable&dq=La+musique+commence+l%C3%A0+o%C3%B9+la+parole+est+impuissante+%C3%A0+exprimer+%3B+la+musique+est+faite+pour+l'inexprimable&hl=pl&ei=ZNvtTI3-G9iS4gantf3ZCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBTgU, Flammarion, 1957, s. 44.
Claude Debussy słynne cytaty
Źródło: Jan Oleszkowicz, Gra muzyka! Podręcznik do muzyki dla gimnazjum, wyd. Nowa Era, Warszawa 2011, s. 86.
Źródło: Janusz Ekiert, Czy wiesz? Zagadki muzyczne, Warszawa 1995, wyd. Alfa, s. 83.
Claude Debussy: Cytaty po angielsku
As quoted in Music in History : The Evolution of an Art (1957) by Howard Decker McKinney and William Robert Anderson, p. 640
As quoted in An Encyclopedia of Quotations About Music (1981) by Nat Shapiro, p. 69
Wariant: The century of aeroplanes deserves its own music. As there are no precedents, I must create anew.
As quoted in The Lives of the Great Composers (1997) by Harold C. Schonberg, p. 464
As quoted in Music in the Modern World (1948) by Rollo Hugh Myers, p. 99
Variant translation: The attraction of the virtuoso for the public is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always the hope that something dangerous might happen.
As quoted in Debussy (1989) by Paul Holmes, p. 10
As quoted in An Encyclopedia of Quotations About Music (1981) by Nat Shapiro, p. 194