It took great courage to ask a beautiful young woman to marry me. Believe me, it is easier to play the whole Petrushka on the piano.

To be alive, to able to see, to walk...it's all a miracle. I have adapted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle.

The result was magnificent . . . I became the father of two girls and two boys, lovely children by good fortune they all look like my wife.

I am tired before the concert, not afterward.

I was born very, very lazy and I don't always practice very long. but I must say, in my defense, that it is not so good, in a musical way, to overpractice. When you do, the music seems to come out of your pocket. If you play with a feeling of 'Oh, I know this,' you play without that little drop of fresh blood that is necessary – and the audience feels it.

At every concert I leave a lot to the moment. I must have the unexpected, the unforeseen. I want to risk, to dare. I want to be surprised by what comes out. I want to enjoy it more than the audience. That way the music can bloom anew. It's like making love. The act is always the same, but each time it's different.

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