Piano playing is more difficult than statesmanship. It is harder to awake emotions in ivory keys than it is in human beings.

I established a certain standard of behavior, that, during my playing, there must be no talking.

Musical expression is never primarily national, but is personal and individual rather. It is so deep, so profound, that it goes beyond and below nationality and gives voice to the most private feeling. In music there is never exact heredity. Each man is an individual.

Art must be a slow and normal evolution.

The genius is the man who has genuine and deep human relations with others, who does not cut himself off in the search for originality, but who realizes the value of artistic tradition.

I loved your country [America] before I knew it.

Intellectual isolation always follows commercial isolation.