Quotes

I like blackjack. I like the psychology of poker. I'm addicted to the adrenaline of performing, and I think when you're used to having that high, you look for it in other things. Violinists are notorious gamblers [Henryk] Wieniawski and [Niccolo] Paganini lost their violins gambling.

[on dealing with security issues for his $4 million Stradivarius] The last time it was stolen [1936], it was gone for fifty years. The thief confessed on his deathbed. He was a violinist and he covered it in shoe polish and played on it his whole life. But it's the best investment I've ever made, although I'll never see the profits because I will die with this in my hands. Traveling with it is like traveling with a baby. It's irreplaceable, but it won't spontaneously combust.

[on encouraging his sons to be musicians] I wouldn't discourage them, but I'm [also] not pressuring them to stay in music. But it's absolutely necessary that they have music in their lives. Every child should have music. It's the best thing for the mind that anyone could do.

I truly believe that the achievements of composers like Brahms or Beethoven ... [are] the greatest achievements of mankind, along with a very few other things. There's just a few minds like that in the century, and we're playing this great music, and so to do it justice you have to treat it like life and death.