Top 91 Quotes & Sayings by Zubin Mehta

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

My tastes are Viennese.

I miss the standard of the New York Philharmonic's playing very much. It has certainly been a high point in my life.

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

Israel gives the West Bank water twice a week! One way of promoting good would be not to ration water.

One learns how to change gears within a concert repertoire.

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

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

There was an opinion expressed in the newspapers that, after 20 years, maybe the Israel Philharmonic should consider asking me to leave. I thought they might have a point, so I asked my orchestra. They told me overwhelmingly that they wanted me to stay.

I love India.

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.

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

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

I have a few homes, and Los Angeles is certainly one of them.

I'm really not a party person. I'm in the business of working with 100 people every day, so I don't revel in meeting a roomful of people in my leisure time.

As long as they keep building settlements, the world will be anti-Israeli.

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'm a pucca Indian. Bombay is my home.

As soon as, say, Saddam Hussein started bombing Israel with Scuds, everyone was like, 'Poor Israel.' But when Israel retaliates - and most of the time they then win - people turn against them.

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

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.

In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahms's four symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems.

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

Israel is a piece of real estate that neither Jew or Arab will let go of; neither will leave these shores. And so they will have to learn to live together.

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

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

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

I just want to play for Hindus and Muslims that sit together. That's all I want to do.

Let's try to count the number of Nobel prize-winners that have emerged from scientific centres of excellence like the Weizmann Institute and Haifa's technical university, the Technion. There has to be at least 25.

I am always hearing from Israelis, 'Oh, CNN is anti-Israel,' or 'BBC is against us.' But no, they are reporting facts.

I wish that only three residents of Tel Aviv could see what conditions on the West Bank are like. Living in such proximity, most Israelis have no idea about the adversity on the West Bank.

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

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

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

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

Why does Israel always have to suffer for others to feel bad for it?

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.

Bruckner's Eighth is a colossus.

The New York Philharmonic is a tremendous opportunity, a great orchestra.

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.

There are three orchestras in Munich, all world-quality, in a city of one million. Yet every hall is full.

We are so indebted to our ancestors, musically speaking, that they have left us 400 years of music.

I am often critical of Israel's policies when in the country, but then feel defensive of them when overseas.

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

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.

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.

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

I'm a Persian Jew, and we don't speak Hebrew.

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.

One shouldn't know the future.

I feel that the critic and music director should have such a good relationship they can pick up the phone and call each other any time.

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

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.

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

My life is so full of sacrifices.

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

In Chicago, they die for their teams.

I've never said, 'I live for art.'

I believe in music.

After conducting Wagner, Beethoven's triple concerto is like taking an Alka Seltzer.