Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action. We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great.

The second fiddle. I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play the second fiddle with enthusiasm

Conducting is like making love to a hundred people at the same time.

A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.

The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.

Wine snobbery, of course, is part showmanship, part sophistication, part knowledge, and part bluff

The 20th century has been a badly written drama, from the beginning.