I'm a perfectionist, and I always think that I can do better what I have done, even if it's good.

People think I'm disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.

I think a life in music is a life beautifully spent, and this is what I have devoted my life to.

The rivalry is with ourself. I try to be better than is possible. I fight against myself, not against the other.

If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.

Music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion.

Some singers want the audience to love them. I love the audience.

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

You don't need any brains to listen to music.

As an art form, opera is a rare and remarkable creation. For me, it expresses aspects of the human drama that cannot be expressed in any other way, or certainly not as beautifully.

A kiss unlike any other kiss. There was no denying that.

I want to be able to look back and think that as long as I was going this, I did the best that I could.

Alice of Wonderland was stranded on Earth.

Oh, they loved dearly: their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss.

Men in your position have women offering themselves in the hopes that they will get somewhere professionally, or socially.

I wasted years worrying about what other people thought.

Travel light and trust in serendipity.

there is no Plan B because there is no Planet B

When people believe that every move they make is going to affect their compensation, they tend to get risk averse.

Breathing is meditation; life is a meditation. You have to breathe in order to live, so breathing is how you get in touch with the sacred space of your heart.