You know creators, composers, need a palette for life, a color for life.

- Mstislav Rostropovich

The artist must forget the audience, forget the critics, forget the technique, forget everything but love for the music. Then, the music speaks thro…

- Mstislav Rostropovich

I would rather have ideas and some difficulties of technique than a perfect technique and no ideas.

- Mstislav Rostropovich

When I started learning the cello, I fell in love with the instrument because it seemed like a voice - my voice.

- Mstislav Rostropovich

I never studied, but I had the best teachers.

- Mstislav Rostropovich

There is too much emphasis on technical perfection nowadays, and not enough on what music is actually about - irony, joy, human suffering, love.

- Mstislav Rostropovich

All my life I wanted to play music with love to every member of the audience.

- Mstislav Rostropovich

Capitalism, communism ... it's all garbage.

- Mstislav Rostropovich

The cello is a hero because of its register - its tenor voice. It is a masculine instrument, whereas the violin is feminine because of its soprano pi…

- Mstislav Rostropovich