...no formula for success [exists] except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings." "I accept life unconditionally. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

Sometimes I think, not so much am I a pianist, but a vampire. All my life I have lived off the blood of Chopin.

Life is the game that must be played, this truth at least, good friends, we know; so live and laugh, nor be dismayed as one by one the phantoms go.

People are always setting conditions for happiness... I love life without condition.

Even when I'm sick and depressed, I love life.

We only begin to live life when we learn to accept it on its own terms.

When I sit in Paris in a cafe, surrounded by people, I don't sit casually - I go over a certain sonata in my head and discover new things all the time.