And in English you have this wonderful difference between listening and hearing, and that you can hear without listening, and you can listen and not hear.

Music has the capacity to create a greater reality.

Anti-Semitism has no historical, political and certainly no philosophical origins. Anti-Semitism is a disease.

There are many types of silence. There is a silence before the note, there is a silence at the end and there is a silence in the middle.

Every great work of art has two faces, one towards its own time and one towards future, towards eternity.

When playing music, it is possible to achieve a unique sense of peace.

An hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get the child interested in music. An hour in a violin lesson in Palestine is an hour away from violence, is an hour away from fundamentalism.

Music means different things to different people and sometimes even different things to the same person at different moments of his life.

Not only has the eyes taken over, but we have anaesthetised the ears through all the muzak that we hear all the time.

The tempo is the suitcase. If the suitcase is too small, everything is completely wrinkled. If the tempo is too fast, everything becomes so scrambled you can't understand it.

I can't stand being in Chicago anymore and hearing the Brahms Violin Concerto in the elevator. Because that shows me that when they come to the concert hall they listen to it in the same way.

His ghost comes back to be remembered. If he can’t be in this life, he procures a way to stay in orbit, and in that way, is never forgotten.

History is written by winners.

The key question isn't 'What is Evil?' The key question is 'When does the Good become Evil?

We cannot and we must not allow ourselves to get distracted from our sacred duty. We cannot and we must not lose focus on the things that matter most.

A novel is a printed circuit through which flows the force of a reader's own life.

To look forward to pleasure is also a pleasure.

I agree with Thomas Jefferson, who once wrote that he would support the death penalty only when the infallibility of human judgment had been demonstrated.

If I'm just in dungarees, I don't think I would intimidate anyone.

Never before have we known what we know.

Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold, And the mate of the Nancybrig, And a bos'sun tight, and a midshipmite, And the crew of the captain's gig!