Ethel Smyth - the writer must resist this temptation [to quote] and do his best with his

the writer must resist this temptation [to quote] and do his best with his own tools. It would be most convenient for us musicians if, arrived at a given emotional crisis in our work, we could simply stick in a few bars of Brahms or Schubert. Indeed many composers have no hesitation in so doing. But I have never heard the practice defended; possibly because that hideous symbol of petty larceny, the inverted comma, cannot well be worked into a musical score.

- Ethel Smyth

source: Ethel Smyth (1922). “Streaks of life”

topic: Emotional, Practice, Temptation, Larceny, Brahms, Schubert