I played with the best conductors of the world.

You must play for the love of music. Perfect technique is not as important as making music from the heart.

When I started learning the cello, I fell in love with the instrument because it seemed like a voice - my voice.

There is too much emphasis on technical perfection nowadays, and not enough on what music is actually about - irony, joy, human suffering, love.

All my life I wanted to play music with love to every member of the audience.

I would rather have ideas and some difficulties of technique than a perfect technique and no ideas.

Capitalism, communism ... it's all garbage.

Explain to me, please, why in our literature and art so often people absolutely incompetent in this field have the final word.

I like coming to the United States because the United States played an important role in my life.

I never studied, but I had the best teachers.

It is my aim, my destination in life to make the cello as beloved an instrument as the violin and piano.

Success, in a generally accepted sense of the term, means the opportunity to experience and to realize to the maximum the forces that are within us.

The opinion formulated by the Church has more value in my eyes than human reasons, whatever they may be.

I was feeling single, seeing double, wound up in a whole lotta trouble.

You can make the case that slacktivism is important because it makes people feel affiliated to a movement and be part of it, and talk about it.

People may be said to resemble the pieces of a puzzle, each unique, yet each essential to bring out a complete picture.

There will always be some curve balls in your life. Teach your children to thrive in that adversity.

Since the end of the Cold War, hegemonism has become increasingly unpopular.

It is very deplorable that North Korea still does not uphold human rights, which are universal values.

The blues is celebration, because when you take sorrow and turn it into music, you transform it.

Every season I am inspired by women.