Can you appreciate music without playing it? Yes, you can. You can appreciate baseball without playing it. Many people attend a football game merely for the crowd, the excitement, the color.

There is no such thing as perfection, there are only standards. And after you have set a standard you learn that it was not high enough. You want to surpass it.

The discipline of practice every day is essential. When I skip a day, I notice a difference in my playing. After two days, the critics notice, and after three days, so does the audience.

If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.

There is no top. There are always further heights to reach.

When people come to play music as they do to play bridge, civilization will have taken the longest stride forward since the beginning of time.

Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic. Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself, and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me.