I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees.

In the olden days, everybody sang. You were expected to sing as well as talk. It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.

Life without music is unthinkable.

When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.

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

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

We musicians, like everyone else, are numb with sorrow at this murder, and with rage at the senselessness of the crime. But this sorrow and rage will not inflame us to seek retribution; rather they will inflame our art. Our music will never again be quite the same. This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. And with each note we will honor the spirit of John Kennedy, commemorate his courage, and reaffirm his faith in the Triumph of the Mind.