To be a musician is a great privilege but it is also a very great responsibility. One must think that to be a musician is a gift - a gift from Nature. There is no great merit in us except in loving this gift with respect and devotion and doing everything possible to honor that gift by work and more work. We must work with conviction and humility, searching for beauty, simplicity, and the Truth. And it is for us musicians to do all in our power for a better world. Music must carry the message of beauty, of love and of peace.

We ought to think that we are one of the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all humanity. We cannot live without the others, without the tree.

The situation is hopeless, we must take the next step.

For twelve years I studied and worked at them every day, and I was nearly 25 before I had the courage to play one of them in public. Before I did, no violinist or cellist had ever played a Suite in its entirety.

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

Throughout my career, nervousness and stage-fright have never left me before playing. And each of the thousands of concerts I have played at, I feel as bad as I did the very first time.

You do not lose your value or preciousness when you grow to be a adult. You are still that miraculous creation. You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.