Explore Quotes by James Levine

I have a big problem with conductors who gesture a lot.

I grew up in an era where an orchestra was like a treasure chest.

Everybody blames the culture without taking responsibility.

As major orchestras around the world are gripped in various kinds of crises and upheaval, we need to be sure that we are bringing up this new generation.

Employee fathers need to step up to the plate and put their family needs on the table.

And, over the last thirty years we have seen men's participation in both housework and childcare has increased and women's have stayed at about the same.

At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching.

Working mothers do an hour more per day than working fathers do and working mothers do on average an hour more per day with the kids than working fathers do.

And so, little by little, I gradually divested myself of pretty nearly all of the guest conducting I used to do, because I was at the same time working in the places like the Met, where I could work in this sort of depth.

Art has never been a popularity contest.

Fate is a misplaced retreat. Many people rationalize an unexplained event as fate and shrug their shoulders when it occurs. But that is not what fate is. The world operates as a series of circles that are invisible, for they extend to the upper air. Fate is where these circles cut to earth. Since we cannot see them, do not know their content, and have no sense of their width, it is impossible to predict when these cuts will slice into our reality. When this happens, we call it fate. Fate is not a chance event but one that is inevitable, we are simply blind to its nature and time.

We're in the midst of an evolution, not a revolution.

I think this orchestra's strengths involve drama and voice.

Great cataclysmic things can go by and neither the orchestra nor the conductor are under the delusion that whether they make this or that gesture is going to be the deciding factor in how it comes out.

I can imagine wanting to work with this ensemble and this company always.

Most people treat the office manual the way they treat a software manual. They never look at it.

There is no relationship between the gestures and what an orchestra will do.

A lot of people get impatient with the pace of change.