The reason why Schubert is celebrated so much today, lies rather in the fact that there has been nobody else like him - not before him, not after him.

All music has to speak in some form or other.

Within each individual young person you meet, you have the same fields to plough. The trick is just to wake them up, to sharpen their ears for what's already there in the music.

With creative people, truly new horizons open up.

In Romanticism, the main determinant is the mood, the atmosphere. And in that regard, you could also describe Schubert as a Romantic.

The future? Like unwritten books and unborn children, you don't talk about it.

Unfortunately, it happens all too seldom that you really disappear behind a work, that you are no longer audible as an interpreter.

Many, many composers have only found their way to a certain form, through familiarizing themselves with texts.

Toward the end of his life, one can sense that he was no longer thinking his way into the minds of others, causing them to speak on his behalf, but that he was now speaking for himself.

The composition of a single melody is born out of a bit of text, perhaps the first line, but it can also be the entire strophe; it can even be the poem's overall form.

But the thing that will always occupy me the most is music.

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.

These trees and these old people have one thing in common - they're both going in the ground soon!

A lot of people are focused on climate change as a defining challenge of our time. A lot of people think it is a non-problem, at least in the United States.

I do think it is harder to acknowledge our strengths, or to forgive ourselves and each other for our shortcomings, when there has not been a result we can all agree on.

...we should realize that there are three sources for our thoughts - God, the devil, and ourselves.

Don't worry about your father. He's a perfectly contented, self-sufficient zombie.

Those who follow where their genitals lead them often wind up in tedious company.

If it works, don't fix it; do more of it.

The sculptor, the painter the musician the dancer, or any artist, if he can first obtain celebrate in Paris, acquires very easily the esteem and eulogy of other countries.

Leaders' careers will usually be determined by their handling of one or two critical events that no one could possibly anticipate or plan for.