But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean.

Being a conductor is kind of a hybrid profession because most fundamentally, it is being someone who is a coach, a trainer, an editor, a director.

If you're curious, if you have a capacity for wonder, if you're alive, you know all that you need to know [about music].

Classical music is an unbroken, living tradition that goes back over 1,000 years, and every one of those years has had something unique and powerful to say to us about what it's like to be alive.

The big difference between human happiness and sadness? Thirty-seven freakin' vibrations.

You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is!

Classical music is a wonderful 1200 year-old tradition that witnesses everything that it has meant and what it means right now to be human.

The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.

I think music needs to be presented in a way so that kids can grasp songs, dances, simple music that's associated with some particular defining moment in human experience.

When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.

Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.

You cannot borrow half of who you are from someone else, yet people try to do it all of the time, they just call it a relationship!

If you truly desire to be great, you must understand time management.

Crooked Hillary. Look, can you imagine another four years of the Clintons? Seriously. It's time to move on.

I have a nice bookshelf in my office, but not my house. I'm crass, but not that crass.

I just sat down and thought, I'm going to write a song today, I'm going to give it a try. So I just stuck it on a tape like everything else. That was just another song.

I think it is important to say that though, of course, it is wonderful to have children, it is a disservice to others not to also say how hard it is to do it alone.

The price earning multiple must be less than ten or the inverse of the long term corporate bond rate, whichever is the less.

I shall become, I shall become a collector of me. And put meat on my soul.

Since we shall love each other, I shall be great and you shall be rich.

People keep asking me whether I'm going to vote for Obama or McCain in the election. But I'm like, why bother? There will never be another leader as good as he was.