Zubin Mehta

One shouldn't know the future.

In Chicago, they die for their teams.

I would convert to Judaism if the operation didn't hurt so much.

The amount of culture going on in a small country like Israel is amazing.

It's hard to find an emblem of cultural, national pride that burns as bright as Israel's success in classical music.

I'm hopeful that Israelis can go to Ramallah whenever they want and see how the people are living.

I love rap because it talks about pain that comes authentically from the ghetto. It moves me.

Just imagine, the thousands and thousands of concerts that take place every single day, all over the world. And the positive effect that they would have on the people listening. Now imagine a world without this. This void... it is unthinkable.

Rock music is predictable, unless there's great talent involved.

I think conductors do spend too little time with their orchestras.

New York is really the place to be; to go to New York, you're going to the center of the world, the lion's den.

New York for a long time was a kind of conductor's graveyard.

You might say that Richard Wagner was the Queen Victoria of Europe. He had musical children everywhere!

Go to the young conductors who are not making it, and you will hear how we shouldn't push ourselves or sell ourselves, how they don't have the right connections and the right opportunities. Well, you can be sure they've had the opportunities.

I always look at the work of fashion designers as if they were art.

If North American musicians would only know how uncomfortable life is for European musicians.

I feel growing up in Mumbai is an advantage, as we grow up speaking so many languages that when we go abroad, it becomes easier to learn new languages.

Bruckner's Eighth is a colossus.

Wagner's philosophy had absolutely nothing to do with Bruckner. Bruckner hadn't written a single word against Jews. Wagner's book on the Jews was one of the most infamous books of the 19th century.

Some musical directors have more chutzpah. They pick up the phone and talk people into giving. I prefer to call and say 'thank you' after the money has been contributed.

Open rehearsals reach people who might not otherwise hear the Philharmonic - people on fixed incomes, people who can't move easily at night, students.

I sometimes feel it is to my disadvantage that I have not conducted the Cleveland Orchestra or the Boston or Chicago symphonies, but then I have had to sacrifice something in order to have enough time with my orchestras.

It seems always to have been difficult to have been a New York Philharmonic conductor because of the nature of New York. We are in direct competition with the great orchestras in the world who come to play in our hall or in Carnegie, and we are constantly compared. I think that 's a good thing.

There are people who think I am Israeli. That's rubbish.

I am jealous of all those people who live on the shore of Dal Lake.

I have had bullets flying at concerts, but I don't want to talk about that.

I am not only a Parsi, I am a Kashmiri too.

I'm very much tied to the state of Israel, but I am against their policy of settlements in Palestine.

Citizens of India, Pakistan, and Kashmir need to come together and make music.

My tastes are Viennese.

Music is the message of peace, and music only brings peace.

My parents had chosen the medical profession for me. I even studied a few semesters at St Xavier's College, but at the back of my mind, I always wanted to be a musician like my father.

An American orchestra doesn't want to play more than it has to. I respectfully disagree with that attitude.