Simon Rattle

Sometimes, musicians worry too much about how beautifully they are playing.

Oh Lord... I don't really do pride.

Always the journey, never the destination.

I believe if you're not completely in love with what you're doing, you'd better find another profession.

You don't like Liverpool: you either loathe it or you love it. And I don't know anyone who loathes it and comes from it.

Pelleas et Melisande' is one of the saddest and most upsetting operas ever written. If you love the opera as I do, then you love it to pieces, obsessively.

I love Mozart, but I often make a terrible hash of it.

In England, unless I am mistaken, I think some of the politicians who love classical music and opera are a bit loath to be seen there in case people think it is elitist. That is a real shame because it also means we are not allowing our politicians a hinterland that an earlier generation, a Denis Healey, would have taken for granted.

If you think the music business is the be-all and end-all of life, you're in big trouble.

I was thrilled that Sadiq Khan was so in support of the idea of culture being at the centre of a city and the idea that it is everyone's right. It can't be a matter of privilege or chance. It should be something everyone can have in their life, and that means knowing what it is.

It's interesting: composers can be very funny ducks.

Every orchestra has its own sound.