#beethoven on hearing a report that a violinist complained one of his string quartets was too hard to play:

"Does he really believe that I think about his silly fiddle when the muse strikes me to compose?"

Update: I haven't been able to verify this, and Claude plausibly opines that it is unverifiable: https://claude.ai/share/762f177a-580e-48d4-833b-08e32417aae9