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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Man has made many machines, complex and cunning, but which of them indeed rivals the workings of his heart?

The cello is like a beautiful woman who has not grown older, but younger with time, more slender, more supple, more graceful.