“What do we teach our children? . . . We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique . . . You may become a Shakespeare a Michelangelo a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything.”

“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.”

“Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.”

“The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?”

“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.”

“Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere.”

“What do we teach our children? . . . We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique . . . You may become a Shakespeare a Michelangelo a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything.”

“In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness... I see what people call God in all these things.”

“I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.”

“Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart..”

“Don’t be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that”