I am tired before the concert, not afterward.

Composing a concert is like composing a menu.... If you start with light pieces and play a 45-minute sonata after the interlude, it's like starting dinner with hors d'oeuvres and dessert and finishing with a Châteaubriand and vegetables.

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

Of course there is no formula for success, except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life, and what it brings

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 seasons are what a symphony ought to be: four perfect movements in harmony with each other.

I'm a free person; I feel terribly free. They could put me in chains and I still would be free because my thoughts would be mine - and that's all I want to have.