Imitation is the sincerest form of show business.
I guess, as a conductor, one goes in and out of fashion. Your career starts with a bang, everyone thinks you're wonderful, and then with middle age, something happens and you go into the wilderness.
The most perfect expression of human behavior is a string quartet.
Basically speaking, conducting is quite a healthy profession.
I was told when I went for a life-insurance exam when I was 18 that I was not likely to live past 50, so I refused to pay the premium.
So I observe life a little bit, rather than participating in it.
In Hamburg, there are three major orchestras, an opera house, and one of the great concert-hall acoustics in Europe at the Laeiszhalle, in a town a fifth the size of London. And that's not unusual. In Germany, there are dozens of towns with two or three orchestras. The connection with music goes very, very deep.
In a democratic society, as Max Weber said, what is possible is only possible because some people have demanded the impossible. The abolitionists helped to create a public discourse in which men like Lincoln become possible. That doesn't mean Lincoln is an abolitionist. It means there is a public opinion out there which is being influenced by antislavery sentiment.
God is present in everything. In the universe in creation, in me and all that happens to me, in my brothers and sisters, in the church - everywhere.
The waste, the insane freaks of these money men, the cynicism and egotism of their life. . . I'll show that they are not brilliant, not romantic, not delightful, not intelligent.
I'm creative because I did an icon navigation while everyone else on the planet sticks to words? No, it just means I didn't want to stick to convention. If anything you can call it rebellious but certainly not creative.