The discipline of practice every day is essential. When I skip a day, I notice a difference in my playing. After two days, the critics notice, and after three days, so does the audience.

Practice like it means everything in the world to you. Perform like you don't give a damn.

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.

If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.

There is no top. There are always further heights to reach.

There is no such thing as perfection, there are only standards. And after you have set a standard you learn that it was not high enough. You want to surpass it.

I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.

Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic. Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself, and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me.

Music has a lot in com­mon with math­e­mat­ics. But in music, two and two need not make four: they add up to what­ever you wish.

If the Almighty himself played the violin, the credits would still read 'Rubinstein, God, and Piatigorsky', in that order.

Just make it (his obituary): born in Russia, first lesson at 3, debut at 7, debut in America in 1917.

To understand ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or of a thousand years because we are living things, always moving, flowing, never resting.

[Bob] Dylan's broken-heart songs are so much better. Like "Simple Twist of Fate".

... for I know I shall be interrupted-- I shall want to be, really, because life is too exciting to sit still for long.

No nation is so great as to be able to afford, in the long run, to remain outside an increasingly universal League of Nations

Our American republic will endure only as long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant.

I am so happy because I want more people to like martial arts movie not just martial arts audience. Even martial arts can be used in comedy, in drama, in horror movies, in different kinds of movies.

If you surround yourself with positive people who build you up, the sky is the limit.

Prayer is no mere exercise of words or of the ears, it is no mere repetition of empty formula.

Quit thinking about your weight and start thinking about your worth and who you are and what you haven't done yet. What you want to accomplish.

You're gonna lose some ball games and you're gonna win some ball games and that's about it.