Once you start playing a piece, there is a connection between every note. You cannot say, 'I will not concentrate on this note.' You cannot ignore things the way you do in the rest of your life.

Every note is a lifetime for itself.

You have to really have the will to hang onto the first note as it is being played, and then really stay with it and take the flight, as it were, you know, for the duration of the piece.

Live life to the full, and become more curious every day. The more you find out about life, the richer your music-making will be.

The thing about Wagner is we're always wrong about him, because he always embraces opposites. There are things in his operas which viewed one way are naturalistic, and viewed another way are symbolic, but the problem is you can't represent both views on stage at once.

I think what history has done to Jewish people, frankly, cannot be made good by giving them a piece of land.