Explain to me, please, why in our literature and art so often people absolutely incompetent in this field have the final word.

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.

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

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.

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.

When you have nothing to lose you become the owner of everything.

Over the years all these vampire movies have come out and nobody looks like a vampire anymore.

Social capital may turn out to be a prerequisite for, rather than a consequence of, effective computer-mediated communication.

Nothing is less like life than our idea of it.

Love is the weapon of the wise.

Most female models don't have any muscle mass.

My wife was delighted with the home I had given her amid the prairies of the far west.

I wasn't brought up to be dazzled by money or fame.

I've been a performer for a long time and I know when people are laughing from their guts, from the inside, and when their tuxedos are laughing.

Never underestimate the value of knowing another's language. It can be far more powerful than swords and arrows.