. .the most crucial ingredient by far for success in music is . . .what happens in the practice room.

Robotic correctness is the last thing judges want to see or hear

If we're not actively making things better, chances are we're making them worse.

Music, the most abstract and uncanny art, is an eternal river of sound moving through time. We can free ourselves from whatever may be holding us back, and join that flowing river.

Mistakes are . . . immensely useful. . . they show us . . . where we are right now and what we need to do next

Music study presents a natural, here-and-now route to selfknowledge and self-integration.

Learning itself is a fulfilling adventure at all points in the process. In fact, psychologists have listed learning as one of the basic, universal joys of human experience.

If you have played "six times wrong, one time right" the problem is not quite corrected.

[perfectionism leads to] a tendency to apologize preemptively for one's efforts, knowing from experience that there's sure to be something wrong with them.

Don't attribute mishaps to a lapse in concentration - if you missed the note you don't know it.

Much music teaching seems more concerned with controlling the student than with encouraging the student's own impulses.

But the amazing thing about life, I've finally discovered, is that you really don't learn from past mistakes. You do logically, reasonably, but emotionally not for a second.

Medicine is a golden goose that has to be killed because every time the goose lays a golden egg, someone gets sick or dead.

He'll probably wake up having sleepless nights about that one.

I'm so terrible. When it comes to talking to women, I'm the worst. I don't know what to say. I come over very, very geeky.

And I think there is too much bloviating around from politicians.

A million candles have burned themselves out. Still I read on. (Montresor)

In any city with lots of skyscrapers, lots of skyline, the moon seems bigger than it is. It's called the moon illusion.

Freedom from suffering is a great happiness.

Motivation describes your attitude when you would rather do one thing more than another at a particular time.

I may do some good before I am dead--be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story.