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.

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.

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

You cannot play the piano well unless you are singing within you.

When I was young, I used to have successes with women because I was young. Now I have successes with women because I am old. Middle age was the hardest part.

...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.

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.