Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it becomes your friend for life.

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Good things happen when you meet strangers.

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When your heart and your mind are engaged, you cannot go wrong.

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I play an instrument that has four strings, and I'm still trying to get it right. What I've tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through music.

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Perfection is not very communicative

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As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody's individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.

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Sharing is a much better way to communicate than proving.

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A Senegalese poet said 'In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.' We must learn about other cultures in order to understand, in order to love, and in order to preserve our common world heritage.

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The worst thing you can do is say to yourself, "I want to be just like somebody else." You have to absorb knowledge from someone else, but ultimately you have to find your own voice.

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I remember when I was growing up. My great wish was to understand who I was and how I fit in the world.

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