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

Anyone who calls my music "impressionist" is an imbecile.

Life is the space between our things.

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.

Music begins where words are powerless to express. Music is made for the inexpressible. I want music to seem to rise from the shadows and indeed sometimes to return to them.

How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling.

Beauty seems to strike some people as a personal affront.