I've been all over the world and I've never seen a statue of a critic.

I have two answers to everything and one answer to nothing.

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.

Success is all very well as long as you don't inhale.

Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.

I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.

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.