I'm more authoritarian with the orchestras than I used to be. You need to hold your ground, I've noticed, or you'll be swept aside.

I think the classical music is on a dangerous downward slope, because it's not seeking strong enough resonance with its society.

Musicians ought to reclaim some of the power in the houses of production. The opera houses are run either by managers or by stage directors, never by musicians.

He had found many years ago before that if you kept very quiet people filled in the silences themselves, offering more information than they had originally intended to give.

I've said many times, 'You learn to win through not liking to lose.' And that's what I mean by learning how to win.

Of all the characteristics needed for both a happy and morally decent life, none surpasses gratitude. Grateful people are happier, and grateful people are more morally decent.

Today, much of journalism and politics are in a kind of collusion to oversimplify and personalize issues. No room for ambivalence. Plenty of room for the personal attack.

I do not believe that any human being is fundamentally happier for being finally lost in a crowd, even if it is called a crowd of comrades.

I am a commercial artist because I paint to earn a living. We who earn money from what we produce are all commercial artists.

What I strive to do through my work, is to teach compassion. You need to have a lot of it, in this day and time, and it's lacking.

I am a fascist, not a racist.

If Germans are happy it means everyone else is miserable.

Nobody in Hollywood ever sets out to make a bad movie ever but about 99% of the time, that's what happens.