“If music is a word, it is a beautiful world for me”

“He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.”

“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.”

“Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.”

“There is no need for words in the world of classical music. Silence speaks louder here.”

“If music is the language of the world, then just imagine how beautiful a seven-billion-part harmony would be. ”

“…I engage with poetry musically. I think I hear the music of the poem before I put words to it. The poem comes to me as it were a song more than a string of words or images. If I can’t transport that musical quality to the poem, then the poem doesn’t exist for me…”

“There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me.”

“Music is for me like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world, and we have to recreate the picture from the pieces.”

“Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…”