I like coming to the United States because the United States played an important role in my life.

Baalbek is so beautiful. It is the heart of beauty in the Middle East - I want to embrace these people with my music. I will try so hard for them. Their president is a Christian, their prime minister is a Muslim. Music is for everyone.

I would rather have ideas and some difficulties of technique than a perfect technique and no ideas.

You know creators, composers, need a palette for life, a color for life.

All my life I wanted to play music with love to every member of the audience.

Now I want to use money in a good way. I make foundations back home in Russia, I have sponsored vaccinations for more than one million children in my homeland and I have founded scholarships in the names of my great Russian compatriots - Oistrakh, Richter, Gilels, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Schnittke.

I came to Moscow when I was 5 years old from Baku. To walk all night in Moscow will bring back my youth to me.