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

Don’t be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters.

The first thing to do in life is to do with purpose what one purposes to do.

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.

Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.

For me, Bach is like Shakespeare. He has known all and felt all. He is everything.

The truly important things in life - love, beauty, and one's own uniqueness - are constantly being overlooked.