During the first six years of my life, Hungary was one of the most important components of the Habsburg dynasty's vast Austro-Hungarian Empire, but after World War I it became an independent national entity.

Between the two men, somewhere, a truth is lying, and that is what I try to find.

I would never have become music director of the Chicago Symphony, which would have been an extremely sad loss.

The academy gave me a grounding in discipline and hard work that has sustained me throughout my life, and the lessons I learned there I now try to impress on young people.

My entire learning process is slow, because I have no visual memory.

From Toscanini I learnt the essential and desperate seriousness of making music.

After about six months, I told my mother that I wanted the lessons to stop, and she was intelligent enough not to force me to continue. Besides, the lessons cost money, which was anything but abundant in our household.