Mozart's music is constantly escaping from its frame, because it cannot be contained in it.

I believe that man's noblest endowment is his capacity to change.

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

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

I believe that from that Earth emerges a musical poetry, which is by the nature of its sources tonal. I believe that these sources cause to exist a phonology of music, which evolves from the universal known as the harmonic series.

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.

...we can all shut-up and go back to our caves.