Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) English composer, arranger and teacher
Letter (1921) to William Gillies Whitaker
(Source)
In Gertrude Norman, Miram Shrifte (eds.), Letters of Composers (1946).
Imogen Holst, his only child, notes the phrase in The Music of Gustav Holst (1951) as "his favourite piece of advice," and in Gustav Holst: A Biography, ch. 11 (1969) as his referring to it as a "good rule."
