On those who overanalyze his music: When you tear the wings off a butterfly, it is no longer a butterfly

If we look at the works of JS Bach ... on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered.

The attraction of the virtuoso for the public is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always the hope that something dangerous may happen.

On those who overanalyze his music: When you tear the wings off a butterfly, it is no longer a butterfly

But music, don't you know, is a dream from which the veils have been lifted. It's not even the expression of a feeling, it's the feeling itself.

First of all, ladies and gentlemen, you must forget that you are singers.

Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.