Music can inspire immediate emotional reactions, even if the only person who hears it is the person creating it.

I guess I just like the idea of digging things up. Although I used to be scared of human skeletons.

If my career doesn't work out as a violinist, I want to become an archaeologist. I've read about paleontology, too - that's dinosaur bones - but I thought it would be more interesting to do archaeology.

Sometimes I like practicing, sometimes I don't. But I like the result... I hardly ever get discouraged. Maybe right when it's very hard to get something done correctly, but then the idea flashes through of how to fix it. And I get encouraged. And other ideas flow.

Sometimes a person comes into an audience after a rough day, and they want to hear something they know.

Writing is a good creative outlet... it's a supplement to my music.

I learn a lot in interviews, I learn about how careers differ.

For me, the conductor is a person who interprets along with me, and we interpret things together.

When I was younger, I felt more like a student working with a mentor when I worked with the conductor, but now it feels more like equals.

I get to work with a lot of great musicians - many I wouldn't have expected to work with - and see how they form their lives around their music and how they approach it.

Touring is a more varied and interesting existence than I would have imagined.

A concert is my experimentation time. I practice playing something several different ways, but in a concert, inevitably I get more ideas onstage, in that combination of focus and adrenaline, than I could ever get in the practice room.

I like to record. It's very intense.

The violin didn't keep me from doing things I wanted to do.

I feel like I had as normal a childhood as anyone, but it had a certain focus. Maybe other kids focused on sports.

Is there such a thing as a normal childhood?

When you have live music in the background, people are usually talking over it. You don't actually get to listen to live music in your space all the time.

I've never loved composing, because I feel like other people do it better.

What I find really interesting is, whenever you see the person who gives you the portrait of yourself, the portrait seems to be a combination of their face and your face.

I was a student that responded well to knowing what to work on.

You're not supposed to stop and listen and spy on people practicing. It's supposed to be a private thing. But it's when you come face-to-face with yourself and you look for your flaws and you try to fix them yourself, it's a really intimidating process. It can be very discouraging.

There's nothing I really wanted to record more than Bach. It's wonderful music. It's - on a grand scale, there's a lot to it. There are - I can work on it for a long time and keep discovering more things, you know, that surprise me every time.

I think when a teacher says that you're ready for something, it means you're ready to learn it. It doesn't always mean that you are completely capable of doing everything that's inside the piece.

By the time I was 12, I was starting my high school stuff in home schooling.