Zubin Mehta quotes:

In Bombay, we have a fine concert hall. I think it is high time we built venues in Delhi and Calcutta, not only for western music, but also Indian music. It doesn't matter which party is in power; don't you think the capital of India should have a concert hall?

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.

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

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

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

Indian hotels are doing well globally because they understand hospitality.

There is a school in Israel called Hand in Hand which I support. There Arab and Jewish students study together on a daily basis.

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

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.

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.

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

I love the creativity of New York, but I don't enjoy the city - I don't like living here.

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

My family and relatives alone could fill Shanmukhananda Hall in Bombay.

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

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

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

Even in music concerts in Mumbai and different parts of the world, seats are reserved for sponsors.

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

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.

My life is so full of sacrifices.

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.

Though there is such a rich tradition of culture and arts, I have never been invited to perform at a concert in South India.

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

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.

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.

One shouldn't know the future.

The private sector is growing so incredibly in India, in every city you have industries for whom building a concert hall would be nothing financially. But they just don't do 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.

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.

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.

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

I respect the Indian government for the fact that there are no settlements in Kashmir.

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

Although I am flexible and ready to take advice, I can't carry an umbrella of thoughts over my head that would distract me and affect my music making.

I endeavor that all orchestras I conduct sound Central European.

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.

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.

My father was a trained accountant, a BCom from Sydenham College and a self-taught violinist. In the 1920s, when he was in his teens, he heard a great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, and he was so inspired listening to him that he bought himself a violin, and with a little help from an Italian teacher, he learned to play it.

My temples are only in India. When I am in India, I go to the religious ceremonies.

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.

There are certainly talented instrumentalists coming from India. I see them performing all over the world.

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

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

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

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.

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

The 'New York Times' reviews of my work have been evenly divided - favourable and unfavourable.

One learns how to change gears within a concert repertoire.

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

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

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

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.

If you can sing together, you can live together.

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

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

Most Arab Israelis speak Hebrew, but not the other way around. It's about time that changed.

...Ori Kam is an outstanding violist who has already played as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra twice, much to our delight and satisfaction, and has availed himself with distinction.

A woman's life in the orchestra is not as long as a man's; she is just not as good at 60 as a man is at 60.

Essentially, the [New York] Philharmonic is just like any other orchestra-they all have the spirit of kids, and if you scratch away a little of the fatigue and cynicism, out comes a 17-year-old music student again, full of wonder, exuberance and a tremendous love of music.

I knew at university that medicine was just not for me. I saved many lives by not being a doctor!

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

In this art form, in any art form, generalities are useless.

In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahmss four symphonies and Richard Strausss tone poems.

Rock music is predictable, unless theres great talent involved.