Quotes

Peru is a country where more than half the people would emigrate if given the chance. That's half the population that is willing to abandon everything they know for the uncertainty of a life in a foreign land, in another language.

Publication in 'The New Yorker' meant everything, and it's no exaggeration to say that it changed my life.

In life, we all learn from everyone.

There's horror in your life, believe me, whether it's coming, or you've just been lucky to miss it today.

I realized I've spent all my life creating a past.

'Puffball' is a love story... no, it's a life story.

I thought, 'My God, I'm gonna make $15,000 a week for 13 weeks.' What would I do with that kind of money? You know, I had never seen anything like that before in my life.

I hate it when people talk about Tony Curtis and say: 'His real name was Bernie Schwartz... ' That was just the name that he was given at birth. It's not the person he lived his life with, and became.

You can't hide in life. We are all being watched by some larger vision.

Music means different things to different people and sometimes even different things to the same person at different moments of his life.

Live life to the full, and become more curious every day. The more you find out about life, the richer your music-making will be.

For many people, music is here to let them forget the daily chores of life.

I maintain music is not here to make us forget about life. It's also here to teach us about life: the fact that everything starts and ends, the fact that every sound is in danger of disappearing, the fact that everything is connected - the fact that we live and we die.

Once you start playing a piece, there is a connection between every note. You cannot say, 'I will not concentrate on this note.' You cannot ignore things the way you do in the rest of your life.

It is always interesting and sometimes even important to have intimate knowledge of a composer's life, but it is not essential in order to understand the composer's works.

I am the conductor for life of the Staatskapelle in Berlin, which fills me with tremendous joy because I feel absolutely at one with them. When we play, I have a feeling that together we manage to create one collective lung for the whole orchestra so that everybody in the stage breathes the music in the same way.

Most of the time I spend looking for the 25th hour in the day, the ninth day in the week, the 32nd day in the month and the 367th, eighth or 70th day in the year because I feel I have a very rich life.

I love life too much to be bitter.

Every note is a lifetime for itself.

Music is not a profession. Music is a way of life - one that requires much professionalism.

No one can be an artist without a rich inner life.

'Bronson' was like, 'I'll do a movie about my own life.' And it became like an experiment.

You cannot go through life without cause and effect.

It's hard to always challenge yourself, coming up with new ways to make your life difficult, so when you make something, it becomes more interesting.

I suppose there is nothing regular about my life.