As long as one can admire and love, then one is young forever.

To the whole world you might be just one person, but to one person you might just be the whole world.

Don't play the notes. Play the meaning of the notes.

Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.

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

Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. I don't accept it.

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.