Mozart on writing symphonies

“Well, I always could, and I suspect I wasn’t the only one. It’s not something that can be passed on from one person to another. I remember, late in my short life, an even younger person came to me and said, ‘Maestro, I want to write symphonies. Can you give me some advice?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘my first piece of advice to you is that you wait until you are a bit older. You are too young yet to write symphonies.’ ‘But Maestro, you were writing symphonies when you were nine years old!’ ‘Yes, and I was not asking advice, either.’”