“I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius.”

“Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities”

“Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.”

“Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe.”

“Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.”

“When I began there was an expectation that I play like Abbaji, but over the years luckily for me music lovers got around to accepting me for what I play… Look at others like Ustad Bismillah Khan’s son who has lost his way in trying to play shehnai like his father. Copying his father is one thing but taking his music forward is quite another.”

“The music is one of the beautiful things that has survived the Castro regime. I have played for audiences all over the world but I've never played for a Cuban audience. For [husband] Emilio and me, the music is the one tie to our homeland.”

“Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend.”

“I decided then and there that the symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms were the only music for me, not the music of this crazy Russian. … My one desire was to flee that room and find a quiet corner in which to rest my aching head. Then Diaghilev turned to me and with a smile said, "This is a masterpiece, Monteux, which will completely revolutionize music and make you famous, because you are going to conduct it."”

“I don’t believe in luck, Sam. Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius.”