Debussy didn't believe in god. He didn't believe in the Establishment. He didn't believe in bourgeois convention. He didn't believe in Beethoven or Wagner. He believed in... Debussy.

Debussy understood that a work of art, or an effort to create beauty, was always regarded by some people as a personal attack.

He hated to appear in public. Hated to conduct. Hated to play the piano at concerts. He preferred cats to people.

No one was ever sure whether the spites with which Debussy armed his volatile sensibilities were activated by a savage insensitivity, or by the holy egoism of genius.