Perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.
Itzhak PerlmanFor every child prodigy that you know about, at least 50 potential ones have burned out before you even heard about them.
Itzhak PerlmanI am playing the violin, that's all I know, nothing else, no education, no nothing. You just practice every day.
Itzhak PerlmanI find personally that when I go to a place where I can't get in, I feel hostility from whatever it is, a hotel, a shop, a market, a street corner where there are no curb cuts, because somebody forgot to put them in, and where I have to go two blocks to the corner to do it. A lot of the excuses are, "Well, this is an old building." That's my favorite one. "This is an old building." It's as though 50 years ago, people with disabilities did not exist. As if the disabled are a new problem. It has always been a problem.
Itzhak Perlman