I have just one fiddle. It works, and that's it. It has been an old friend.

Only one of my grandchildren is serious about a musical instrument. The others dabble in it.

Television will always err on the side of making something not quite as classy as it could be.

I've been lucky to conduct the very best orchestras in the world: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Berlin, the London Philharmonic.

If you can read, then you can recite Shakespeare. But that's not acting.

Believe me, I've had interviews where the person says, 'So when did you start and why? What about your parents?' I say to them, 'Please, have you heard of the word 'Google?'

A lot of society tries to put people with disabilities into one cube, and when you think about it, many, many people have different types of disabilities, and you cannot put a code that applies to towards everyone - generally, they can be guidelines, but in the long run, interior designers and architects need more education on the subject.

The thing about talent is that it comes at different ages, sometimes at a very early age. That's when I find it to be the most challenging.

An amazing gift in a young child is, in some ways, an abnormality.

I met my wife in music camp. She's got great ears, and we have a relationship where she's not afraid to tell me anything. If something's going on in my playing, she will tell me about it, and that's very, very important.

I am an eternal optimist. I always say 'Yihyeh Tov' or 'It'll get better.'

When I was growing up in Israel, Cantorial music was something I heard over and over on the radio, so it wasn't at all strange to me. I was very familiar with the music.

'Kol Nidrei' is probably the most important prayer in the Jewish religion. It comes on the evening of Yom Kippur. There are so many different renditions of it.

My message is that giving is very important. Giving is a Jewish thing, and I like to talk about that. There's nothing more important, personally, for anybody than being able to give.

Israel is the country of my birth. When I come here, I feel I'm coming home.

Teaching is really very, very important. I always tell my students that you should find an opportunity to teach. When you teach others, you teach yourself.

The danger in playing a piece over and over again lies in getting stuck in a rut where you don't ask questions anymore and you always play it the same way.

I am humbled and honored to receive the Genesis Prize, recognizing not just my professional achievements and my desire to improve the world, but also my commitment to my Jewish identity, Jewish values, and Jewish culture.

My experience with the Detroit Symphony has been musically very satisfying. They have a wonderful sound, which for me is one of the most important qualities in an orchestra.

Access Living is a powerful voice for people in the Chicago area who live with disabilities.

The arts are part of the fiber of American society and should get Federal support.

Architects have to become more aware of exactly what is involved in designing barrier-free buildings and homes.

As for minimalism, I don't care, don't care, don't care to repeat myself, repeat myself.

It is good medicine to go to a concert hall and forget the harshness of what's going on. It can be a very positive thing.

Brahms is one of my all-time favorite composers.

Whenever I play recitals, the part where I talk about music and my experiences of music, audiences always like it. They feel more involved with an artist who talks to them. It's a nice experience for me as well.

I say to string players in small chamber orchestras, 'it's always easy to become a passenger on the journey in sound, just adding volume to the whole. But if you play in an individual way, it makes the difference between good and great sound in an orchestra.'

If you put four different people on a podium conducting the same downbeat, you get four different sounds. It's a little mysterious and fascinating. There's so much you can do with motions and body movements besides giving accurate beats.

The 'Mozart Symphony No. 27' is an early composition. I find it charming.

Everybody's saying, you know, 'You're so heroic and so on despite of the polio that you had and so on.' Look, I had polio when I was four. So when you're four years old, you know, you get used to things very, very quickly.

The thing is that I always consider myself lucky that I can actually cry listening to some music.

If you put your hand on the piano, you play a note. It's in tune. But if you put it on the violin, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. You have to figure it out.