The conductor's stand is not a continent of power, but rather an island of solitude.

A conductor should guide rather than command.

Music does not know the difference between people; it only speaks to their hearts. It is the only form of communication that can bring this terrible world together.

Nobility of spirit has more to do with simplicity than ostentation, wisdom rather than wealth, commitment rather than ambition.

I'm not shy in the spotlight. I might seem austere and even arrogant, but far from it, I'm actually shy.

You have to be able to enthral and persuade at the same time.

You have to channel the interpretation and performance into 100 people. And with the audience, the critics.

Soccer and sports are entertainment ... You can't call Beethoven's 9th Symphony or a work of Shakespeare 'entertainment.' It's not 'entertainment.' It's culture.

It is extraordinary to have time to again study Le nozze di Figaro and discover new things.

Only one in a thousand sits down in the midst of it all and says—I will watch my Father mend this. God must not be treated as a hospital for our broken “toys, ” but as our Father.

Sometimes it hurts to look at you, ” I said. I loved that I could say that and he knew exactly what I meant.

The banalities of a great man pass for wit.

The Korean War, which China entered on the side of North Korea, fixed Mao's image in the United States as another unappeasable Communist.

Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.

To grow old is to lose everything.

A woman is a sometime thing.

In blissful dream, in silent night, There came to me, with magic might, With magic might, my own sweet love, Into my little room above.

Each of us as he receives his private trouncings at the hands of fate is kept in good heart by hearing of the moth in his brother's parachute and the scorpion in his neighbor's underwear.

I don't really usually write sort of a cheerleader-type lyric.