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.

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.

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.

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.

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.

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 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.