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.

When you play Bach like Chopin, and Chopin like Bach, something good happens.

I don't have hobbies. I have passions.

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

The art of not playing in tempo--one has to learn it. And the art of not playing what is written on the printed paper.

Of course, I continue to play and to practice. I think I would do so if I lived for another hundred years.

Bach is the supreme genius of music... This man, who knows everything and feels everything, cannot write one note, however unimportant it may appear, which is anything but transcendent. He has reached the heart of every noble thought, and has done it in the most perfect way.