Quotes

Learning Russian was one of the joys of my life. I'm just sorry I didn't begin the study until my junior year of college.

In classical music and ballet, it's impossible to succeed without years and years of study. It's nice to be in a field where you don't have to start at age 5 to do well.

When I was nine, I hung my riding crop just inside my bedroom closet door. My thought was If an intruder should climb the stairs at night, I would whip it out and beat him into submission, saving my entire family who would sleep on, unaware. It still hangs there to this day.

I first learned about apartheid in South Africa when I was a little girl. I said to myself, "Well, I will never wear a diamond." As I grew older, I found I wasn't attracted to the look of diamonds anyway.....

Don't back away from life. Burrow in. You never know what treasures you might discover.

How did I become an Anglophile? Blame it on my childhood best friend Debbie. We had a little book club going. I traded a very mundane American detective series for the Malory Towers books by Enid Blyton, a series about girls at boarding school in England. The grades were numbered in reverse. So many words were spelled differently, more elaborately. And the girl characters were so confident and forthright. I just fell in love with all of it. Debbie's English aunt would send along a few books at a time; and we always waited breathlessly for the next installment. By the time I was old enough for period films and BBC/PBS series, I was already long gone....

I fell in love with the rehearsal process playing violin in my elementary school orchestra. Piano was a solitary business; I found I enjoyed making music with other people. I understood by then that developing as a musician required absolute focus. What I learned in those early-morning sessions is that when everyone plays her part, the entire ensemble can look forward to creating something beautiful. The wonder of it has never left me....