I've been a woman for a little over 50 years and have gotten over my initial astonishment. As for conducting an orchestra, that's a job where I don't think sex plays much part.

As far as the execution is concerned ... the most frequent and most serious mistake is to follow the music instead of preceding it.

Art is not emotion. Art is the medium in which emotion is expressed.

The great conductor is always a despot by temperament and intractable in his ways. ... The artist is obliged to keep his laughter and tears to himself. If they want to emerge, in spite of himself, then he must hide them or unleash them in someone else.

Without a strong cup to carry the emotion, it is only a curiosity. Great art can come to us only in strong cups. Without emotion, there is nothing to carry.

It is easier to analyze a work in its form, in its evolution, than simply to love it with all the living forces of our heart. It is easier to define its peculiarities and its details than to draw out of it its emotion, its thought.

Without order there can be no inner satisfaction. Without inner satisfaction there can be no freedom. Without freedom there is no joy.