Such a longing for love, rolling itself up under my heart,
poured down much mist over my eyes,
filching out of my chest the soft lungs—
“I want the thing itself. The reality of a work of art is no symbol, no imitation either of outer or inner Nature. It doesn’t imitate the pulse of the heart. It is its own self; it has its own pulse. Otherwise everything would be an imitation in relation to something. Perhaps that’s so: This something is God. Only I don’t like the word imitation.”
Anton Webern