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" As a Liverpool boy, it is impossible not to think of the Beatles' question, 'Will you still need me when I'm 64?' "

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" Germans have an understanding of history and cannot allow themselves to forget it. It may be a curse, but in some ways, it's a blessing. It makes them cautious. "

" I first heard Mahler's second symphony aged 11 in Liverpool, and it inspired me to become a conductor. "

" In England, unless I am mistaken, I think some of the politicians who love classical music and opera are a bit loath to be seen there in case people think it is elitist. That is a real shame because it also means we are not allowing our politicians a hinterland that an earlier generation, a Denis Healey, would have taken for granted. "

" I believe if you're not completely in love with what you're doing, you'd better find another profession. "

" If you receive a whole string of bad reviews, you have to say, 'O.K., maybe there's something here we should pay attention to.' "

" I'd be much more likely to watch the latest Tarantino movie than to listen to a Mahler symphony. "

" There are a few great orchestras in the world, thank goodness. Although some people do put them in ranking order, it's not like a snooker match. Each orchestra has different things to offer. "

" You don't like Liverpool: you either loathe it or you love it. And I don't know anyone who loathes it and comes from it. "

" I was a harpsichordist in my teens, and there was a bunch of us in Liverpool who got together every week to play Bach. "

" Liverpool is off the side of the known universe, and it always was. New York is the only other place comparable. "

" I am old enough to remember the enormous fight over Tate Modern. It is such a part of our cultural landscape now, we forget the opposition to it. "

" Learning music is a birthright. And you have to start young. "

" One of the most extraordinary and all-encompassing forms of communication is music. It reaches places that all kinds of other things cannot reach. I'll put my cards on the table: I think it is our greatest language. "

" I've always had a profound conviction that great music is about joy, even in the face of tragedy. "

" Beethoven was always too much. He's not slightly anything - he's very everything. "

" Passionate musicians only come from passionate five-year-olds. "

" I love Mozart, but I often make a terrible hash of it. "

" I think the English are an unbelievably musical nation and always have been. "

" American economists can't understand the German fear of inflation and the effects of inflation when dealing with the world economic crisis. They wonder why Germany pursues such a different course - 'Why can't they agree with us?' I would have thought it was fairly obvious. "

" In my mid-twenties, I was with a conducting career, but I had never been to university and I wanted to. There were things I wanted to study in depth. I also wanted to see if I could survive without music. "

" With these big Wagner pieces, if I haven't started three years before, I'm screwed. You need time to look at the piece again and again and again, and then, like some fantastic casserole or spaghetti sauce, put it back in the fridge and let the flavours get together. "

" 'Pelleas et Melisande' is one of the saddest and most upsetting operas ever written. If you love the opera as I do, then you love it to pieces, obsessively. "

" I think Beethoven means dissonances to be more stressed than consonances - it's the shock tactician in him. "

" You would never train people to play football by telling them to watch football. You make them play football. "

" Every orchestra has its own sound. "

" My worst and best qualities are rashness: the good part of it is due to youth, which is, of course, why I'm not a great conductor. "

" We have to be evangelists for music. We couldn't just be high priests of music. "

" Oh Lord... I don't really do pride. "

" There is a mysterious way in which orchestras keep a sense of their history and what they've done. I still listen to the L.A. Philharmonic and feel that Giulini was there. "

" The grapevine in England is an extraordinary thing. When there is a really brilliant young composer or soloist, we all hear about it. "