I've speculated about what my life might have been like as a musician, but I'm afraid I came to the conclusion that I probably would've either been teaching piano or maybe gotten to play at Nordstrom's department store.

America is a remarkable place in that social attitudes change almost imperceptibly, and then you wake up the next day and they've changed. But they've been changing all the time.

I play a lot chamber music.As for something that's hard for me to play, before I leave this Earth I'm hoping to play Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.

Prejudice and bigotry are brought down...by the sheer force of determination of individuals to succeed and the refusal of a human being to let prejudice define the parameters of the possible.

When you have big historic changes, there are going to be ups and downs... There are going to be peaks and valleys. Some things are going to go right. Some things are going to go wrong. But as long as the strategic direction is going in the right way, that's really what you have to judge.

I'm a strong believer that you have to have an equal opportunity to fail and to try things that are hard. I always tell my students, "Don't just take things that are easy for you. If you're really good at math, don't take just math. Take classes that make you write. If you're a really great writer, but bad at math, take math and make yourself work your way through it."

Your friends and your family, if you're close to them, they won't let you get too far from who you were or from who you are. And so I love staying close to people who've always known me. That's probably the best leavening that you could possibly have.