If there is one thing of which I am most proud, it's that I made being ginger cool!
Although I am flexible and ready to take advice, I can't carry an umbrella of thoughts over my head that would distract me and affect my music making.
It's hard to find an emblem of cultural, national pride that burns as bright as Israel's success in classical music.
A woman's life in the orchestra is not as long as a man's; she is just not as good at 60 as a man is at 60.
I knew at university that medicine was just not for me. I saved many lives by not being a doctor!
In this art form, in any art form, generalities are useless.
Essentially, the [New York] Philharmonic is just like any other orchestra-they all have the spirit of kids, and if you scratch away a little of the fatigue and cynicism, out comes a 17-year-old music student again, full of wonder, exuberance and a tremendous love of music.
I don't think God cares if I wear nail polish or not. I don't think that's a deal breaker for him.
For me, the experience of not living in America was recognizing that I was American. You don't think about yourself being so culturally encoded, so nationally stamped; you don't discover that when you're a tourist for a month. You see how you reflect the place you're from. When I came back from living in Europe, I was very struck by how I didn't see America as the center of the world in the same way. It's very easy to slip back because America is so powerful. But any place you live is the center of the world.
You have got to own your days and live them, each one of them, every one of them, or else the years go by and none of them belong to you.
When you cut human beings down to size, we're really quite simple creatures; food, shelter, warmth, light, heat and you build it up from there really until you finally go Gucci shoes or whatever it is or whatever your consumer desires are. All those desires are ultimately, they're about gratification.