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.
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
The highest reaches of music come thrillingly close to the central core and essence of life itself.
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.