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.
And no one was ever sure
whether the spikes with which Debussy armed his volatile senibilities
were activated by a savage insensitivity,
or by the holy egoism
of genius.
-- John Hurt, 1999