Don't play the notes. Play the meaning of the notes.

The most important thing in music is what is not in the notes.

For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine, but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. But that is not its only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being.

To retire is the beginning of death.

In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness... I see what people call God in all these things.

Thank God, I'll never have to play the cello again.

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?