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

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.

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.

You know creators, composers, need a palette for life, a color for life.

The only way you're going to reach places you've never gone is if you trust God's direction to do things you've never done.

You might not believe in the devil, but do you believe evil lurks in this world?

The thought, 'I can't' is a lie. We use it to excuse ourselves from trying.

The people of Israel, like those of the United States, are imbued with a religious faith and a sense of moral values

Libraries are the latest fashion for the brain.

Speech is the birthright of every child. It is the deaf child's one fair chance to keep in touch with his fellows.

One thing you really have to watch as a writer is getting on a soapbox or pulpit about anything. You don't want to alienate readers.

Refusing further service as a Roman soldier: I am a soldier of Christ: combat is not permitted to me.

[...] the awesome splendor of the universe is much easier to deal with if you think of it as a series of small chunks.

[He] saw communism for the sham that it was--a bunch of brutes who seized power in the name of the people, only to repress the very people they claimed to champion.