The highest reaches of music come thrillingly close to the central core and essence of life itself.
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
I simply make music, and people have always been foolish enough to pay me for it. I never told them that I would have done it all for nothing.
Music appeals to me for what can be done with it.
Conscience is that which hurts when everything else feels marvelous.
As a boy I remember how terribly real the statues of the saints would seem at 7 o’clock Mass-before I’d had breakfast. From that I learned always to conduct hungry.
On matters of intonation and technicalities I am more than a martinet – I am a martinetissimo.