Joshua Bell quotes:

I'm in a position where, theoretically, I could play the same ten concertos and make a very good living bouncing around playing Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Barber, but I really think artists should keep pushing limits and trying new things.

Although I hardly ever turn on the TV set unless it's football season, I do watch a lot of TV on my iPad - perfect for long airplane journeys.

Every orchestra is different. Sometimes, you're blown away by a particular musician. If I'm playing the Brahms concerto, it's crucial to have a great oboe player, because we work in tandem.

I use Facebook quite a lot to keep up with my friends, although I had to delete 'Words With Friends' from my phone because it was wasting too much of my time.

When you play a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you're telling a story.

The man on the street, he knows who Beethoven is, he knows who Mozart is."

There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a conductor say, 'Play softer,' as they're waving their hands in huge gestures.

You don't have to have lots of love affairs to know what love is.

You only live once, so I try to say yes to everything.

For some reason I can't explain, artist and musicians tend to look younger than our age. Being in music, you need this youthful sense of discovery and wonder for what you're doing and keep your imagination open. That's a youthful way of looking at life and I think that reflects in how you age.

At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off.

So much of performing is a mind game.

A conductor can do wild things which can feel forced, but if you're directing from within the orchestra, you can't do that, things have to feel natural.

I don't want to portray myself as a daredevil. I'm not at all.

I don't listen to a lot of music when I have my free time. But I'll go to a jazz club and have a drink and listen to a good jazz musician. Or sometimes in the morning, if I want to put myself in a good mood, I'll put on some Latin music.

When you play for ticket-holders, you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted.

I like trying things, I am kind of adventurous and I like thrill seeking.

I write arrangements. Im sort of a wannabe composer.

I mean, the great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them.

I was lucky enough to have parents who started me on music very early, but most kids don't get that kind of exposure.

The best way to refine an interpretation is by getting out and performing.

I hope I will always have the chance to play the violin.

I like working with kids because I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces and, it's kind of selfish, I want a future audience.

I love the outdoor festival feeling.

There are some days I take my violin out and it feels dreadful, like nothing is responding, and I want to sell it and get rid of it. And the next day suddenly the skies open up and the sound is glorious again. So it's like a relationship: There are good days and bad days.

The violin sings.

What drew me to the violin was mastering the instrument technically, which I'm continuing to do.

No one tells you what to do if you completely flop at the beginning of a performance.

I never had any real expectations about what sort of success I would have or all the publicity.

Kids need to be structured in some way, but you don't want to force something down their throats that they have no interest in. You have to find the right balance.

I want to do everything. That's my problem.

I don't sleep with a violin in my bed, but there is something very magical about the instrument. You open up the case; it's a masterpiece, it's gorgeous, the varnish is still there from 300 years ago. People who know violins, they look at it and it's almost like a face.

I grew up in a musical family, but nobody was a professional musician.

We live in the least ugly time in history. If you look at back when Beethoven was writing, half the kids were dying, mothers were dying at childbirth, there were more wars going on then than there are now. People wrote the most beautiful things during the ugliest times.

If you mess up the tiniest little thing in the Beethoven concerto, or the phrasing isn't just exactly perfectly executed, Beethoven brings out the worst in the best violinist. You almost never hear a satisfying performance, because it doesn't play itself.

Conducting is a strange thing to teach.

We live in the least ugly time in history.

Actors want to do Shakespeare again and again, or want to do Hamlet. When you hear one guy do Hamlet and another guy do it, it's going to be a whole different experience.

Over the years, I've collected a lot of musical friends.

Music plays a huge role in the movie. The music in Star Wars, I can't imagine what the movie would have been like without it. It made the film.

I always find it funny when people say, "I don't really like classical music" or "it doesn't do anything for me." I tell them, "Well, you know, it does. You go to films and you're responding to it, and you've heard it..." It's controlling you! So don't think you're not being affected. It's a great medium for music.

There are days that I get neurotic with the violin. Every little adjustment will change the balance for good or for bad. It's kind of a miracle, the way the whole thing works as an acoustical whole, so perfectly balanced.

I open up my violin case every day, and have one of the great creations. It is very inspiring. It makes you want to practice. How can you open up a case and look at a violin that was made in 1713 by one of the greatest artists in history and then say, "No, I don't feel like practicing today."

There are some great teachers who have had great students, but they themselves can't play a note. I don't understand it, because the most I learned from my teacher was just hearing him play.