Isaac Stern Quotations

Mozart's music is like an X-ray of your soul - it shows what is there, and what isn't.

Everywhere in the world, music enhances a hall, with one exception: Carnegie Hall enhances the music.

Listen, I will now tell you the truth and there is no other.

Music is like making love: either all or nothing.

A man possesses talent; genius possesses the man.

There are more bad musicians than there is bad music.

His style of playing, particularly in his early years, was a stunning patrician elegance with a very natural musical line which fitted the style of whatever composition.

Playing a concerto with Zubin is like being surrounded by a well-loved, cashmere-lined silk glove.

Outsiders always look for a reason to explain why they are not inside. They never look in the mirror. Let's face it, the profession I'm in is a very simple and a very cruel one. There is no way that you can create a career for someone without talent and no way to stop a career of someone with talent.

A great conductor possesses that certain charisma and talent that demand the ears and the attention of an audience. I can't tell you how that happens, but I'm sure it has an inner basis that is never learned.

Playing a concerto with Zubin is like being surrounded by a well-loved, cashmere-lined silk glove.

I have known Ori Kam for several years and have always regarded him as an extraordinarily talented young mucisian.

New York is the dirtiest, largest, ugliest, broken-down city in the world-but it's the only one.

A conductor has to know how to translate music into a communicative force that makes the listener want to hear what he has to say.

For each glass, liberally large, the basic ingredients begin with ice cubes in a shaker and three or four drops of Angostura bitters on the ice cubes. Add several twisted lemon peels to the shaker, then a bottle-top of dry vermouth, a bottle-top of Scotch, and multiply the resultant liquid content by five with gin, preferably Bombay Sapphire. Add more gin if you think it is too bland... I have been told, but have no personal proof that it is true, that three of these taken in the course of an evening make it possible to fly from New York to Paris without an airplane.

Music is not an acquired culture... it is an active part of life.

It is only through failure and through experiment that we learn and grow.

When you believe in something, you can move mountains.

The greatest wealth of this nation is not only the mergers of giant corporations or the possibility of further globalization of the infrastructure of the world. In the United States, our greatest single source of wealth is the minds and talent of our young people. Not to use it is stupid - to waste it is a crime.

I have a responsibility to pass on to the next generation what I learned from my teachers, ... It keeps me young and reminds me where I came from. Teaching young artists is like giving water to a flower.

Music is the thousandth of a millisecond between one note and another; how you get from one to the other-that's where the music is.