Just before I play, I like to feel that no-one has ever played the piano before, that I'm in complete virgin territory, and that every note I play is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.

Nothing in music is hard, just unfamiliar.

Music can shoot through the musician like lightening through the sky if that music is unobstructed by thoughts.

It is good to view things as familiar or unfamiliar, rather than as difficult or easy.

Ultimately, musicians of the world must come to realize the potential of their calling... If the musician is illuminated from within, he becomes a lamp that lights other lamps.

If one's life depends on doing something right, as in the case of the tightrope walker, one will practice on a much deeper level.

I never call myself modern or traditional, in our out, new or used, because I prefer not to be hemmed in by rigid definitions.

Mastery is playing whatever you're capable of playing-every time-WITHOUT THINKING.

In many cases, the decision to study music has robbed them of the ability to play music. They have lost respect for music that comes from within because they have been programmed to feel "unworthy".

In fear, we expect; with love, we accept.

There is no easy or difficult; only familiar and unfamiliar.

Newspapers might have as much to do in shaping the course of public events as politicians,

Heaven is inside us, ' Ida uttered in a rather loud whisper.

Price ain't merely about numbers. It's a satisfying sacrifice.

I'm not sexist, I'm just a realist.

For behavior, men learn it, as they take diseases, one of another.

I think the diva is kind of a cliche. My definition of a diva is somebody whose talent does not match what they're trying to play, so all this temperament comes out.

Ballroom dancing is a contact sport. Rugby is a collision sport.

To give a body and a perfect form to one's thought, this - and only this - is to be an artist.

His mother understood my illness immediately, that it was my world rather than myself that was diseased.

Nothing is more boring than talking to people who share my opinion anyway.