In times of totalitarian or autocratic rule, music (indeed culture in general) is often the only avenue of independent thought. It is the only way people can meet as equals, and exchange ideas. Culture then becomes primarily the voice of the oppressed and it takes over from politics as a driving force for change.

Germany will never be a real, free thinking and free feeling friend of Israel, because it will always fall under this shadow.

There are many types of silence. There is a silence before the note, there is a silence at the end and there is a silence in the middle.

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

European anti-Semitism goes much further back than to the partition of Palestine and the establishment of Israel in 1948. It even goes further back than the Holocaust.

To have real knowledge, one must understand the essence of things and not only their manifestations.

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