I don't want to portray myself as a daredevil. I'm not at all.

I think if there's ever been a time we need music more, it's now. For our kids, it teaches you to take time, to listen, to work together, to listen to other people, and to use your brain. That's why classical music doesn't work when you throw it at people in a subway platform while they're rushing to work. Classical music is something that needs to be contemplated, you have to be completely present with an active mind that's working. It's not background music.

I never had any real expectations about what sort of success I would have or all the publicity.

I like working with kids because I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces and, it's kind of selfish, I want a future audience.

We live in the least ugly time in history. If you look at back when Beethoven was writing, half the kids were dying, mothers were dying at childbirth, there were more wars going on then than there are now. People wrote the most beautiful things during the ugliest times.

Although I hardly ever turn on the TV set unless it's football season, I do watch a lot of TV on my iPad - perfect for long airplane journeys.

I don't sleep with a violin in my bed, but there is something very magical about the instrument. You open up the case; it's a masterpiece, it's gorgeous, the varnish is still there from 300 years ago. People who know violins, they look at it and it's almost like a face.