The Germans are prisoners of their past.

But the ear, let us not forget, starts operating on the forty-fifth day of the pregnancy of a woman. Seven and a half months advance over the eye...(but) what do we do in our society, in our civilisation, to continue this process?

Anti-Semitism has no historical, political and certainly no philosophical origins. Anti-Semitism is a disease.

And in English you have this wonderful difference between listening and hearing, and that you can hear without listening, and you can listen and not hear.

I always maintain that playing in an orchestra intelligently is the best school for democracy. If you play a solo, the conductor and everybody in the orchestra follows you. Then, a few bars later, the main voice goes to another instrument, another group, and then you have to go back into the collective [sound]. The art of playing in an orchestra is being able to express yourself to the maximum but always in relation to something else that is going on.

An hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get the child interested in music. An hour in a violin lesson in Palestine is an hour away from violence, is an hour away from fundamentalism.

Today, conducting is a question of ego: a lot of people believe they are actually playing the music.