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.

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.

Music will save the world.

When we play an unaccompanied Bach suite we may compare ourselves to an actor in Shakespeare's day, creating scenery which did not exist at all, through the power of declamation and suggestion. So in Bach. There is but one voice -- and many voices have to be suggested.

I am an old man but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life.

The simplest things in music are the ones that count. The simplest thing are, of course, also the most difficult to achieve and take years of work.

The miracle of Bach has not appeared in any other art. To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervour, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time.