Pablo Casals Quotations

The answer to helplessness is not so very complicated,

Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere.

I see in the melody of Nature, God. It is a wonderful work of art. The spirit of the art is wonderful. And I feel that I am myself because I have never taken music lightly. Music is the manifestation of God, like everything else.

For twelve years I studied and worked at them every day, and I was nearly 25 before I had the courage to play one of them in public. Before I did, no violinist or cellist had ever played a Suite in its entirety.

Thank God, I'll never have to play the cello again.

The art of not playing in tempo--one has to learn it. And the art of not playing what is written on the printed paper.

In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness... I see what people call God in all these things.

The most important thing in music is what is not in the notes.

Rock n' roll is poison put to sound.

I have always regarded manual labour as creative and looked with respect-and, yes, wonder-at people who work with their hands. It seems to me that their creativity is no less than that of a violinist or painter.