In the long term, Israel's security rests on only one pillar: the Palestinians' acceptance of the country. It isn't the atom bomb that makes Israel secure.

I love conducting. What I'm tired of is music administration. I don't want that. I just want to make music.

I can't stand being in Chicago anymore and hearing the Brahms Violin Concerto in the elevator. Because that shows me that when they come to the concert hall they listen to it in the same way.

I don't believe that the entire world is constantly anti-Semitic.

Not only has the eyes taken over, but we have anaesthetised the ears through all the muzak that we hear all the time.

I'm sure that there are many Israelis who dream of waking up one day to find the Palestinians gone. And there are many Palestinians who dream of going to bed at night and waking up the next morning to find the Israelis gone.

I have the greatest respect for the survivors of the Holocaust. We can't even imagine what these people went through.