You go through phases. You have to reinvent reasons for playing, and one year's answer might not do for another.

Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it becomes your friend for life.

Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you're passionate about something, then you're more willing to take risks.

When your heart and your mind are engaged, you cannot go wrong.

One is that you have to take time, lots of time, to let an idea grow from within. The second is that when you sign on to something, there will be issues of trust, deep trust, the way the members of a string quartet have to trust one another.

What came up at age 49 is I realized that of all the things I'm interested in, the thing I'm most interested in is figuring out what makes people tick, why people think the way they do, why they act the way they do. And I realized that music is such a great way to investigate why people do what they do.

You must have a reason to be in the places to which you go, and you must do only things that you really care about.