Classical music is an unbroken, living tradition that goes back over 1,000 years, and every one of those years has had something unique and powerful to say to us about what it's like to be alive.

Being a conductor is kind of a hybrid profession because most fundamentally, it is being someone who is a coach, a trainer, an editor, a director.

If you're curious, if you have a capacity for wonder, if you're alive, you know all that you need to know [about music].

The big difference between human happiness and sadness? Thirty-seven freakin' vibrations.

You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is!

Classical music is a wonderful 1200 year-old tradition that witnesses everything that it has meant and what it means right now to be human.

The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.

I think music needs to be presented in a way so that kids can grasp songs, dances, simple music that's associated with some particular defining moment in human experience.

When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.

Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.

One of my central maxims is how a major part of what a conductor tries to do is get a large group of people to agree on where "now" actually is.

You're the one who is weak. You will never know love or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.

Often the right path is the one that may be hardest for you to follow. But the hard path is also the one that will make you grow as a human being.

Nothing shakes the smiling heart.

Betsy dreamed about going away from Deep Valley, but she didn't for a moment suspect that around a bend in her Winding Hall of Fate a journey was actually waiting.

The whole planet reeks of mysticism without revelation.

It's not all about getting your own way. Sometimes there's a bigger picture.

I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see, and then....one day....I got in!

Reason is nothing without imagination.

Make living your life with absolute integrity and kindness your first priority.

'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.