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.

There is nothing boring in life except ourselves.

Never forget that your days are blessed. You may know how to profit by them, or you may not, but they are blesses.

Music was not invented by the composer, but found.

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

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.

In music everything is prolonged, everything is edified, and when the enchantment has ceased, we are still bathed in its clarity; solitude is accompanied by a new hope between pity for ourselves - which makes us more indulgent and more understanding - and the certitude of finding something again, that which lives for ever in music.