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

Which of my Jewish roots do I follow?

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

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

It is the artists of the world, the feelers and the thinkers who will ultimately save us; who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing and shout the big dreams.

A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.

Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own.