Quotes from Joshua Bell

When you start reading a piece together, you get a sense of someone's basic philosophy of music without saying a word. You realize the other person's approach, how they express themselves, the kind of restraint they show, all those things.

You might think that after 40 years of practice you wouldn't need to practice anymore, but sadly it doesn't work that way. You still have to keep chugging away and perfecting.

I have visited schools that have music programs and those that don't. I see the way the kids act with each other.

So much of performing is a mind game.

I love pressure in a different sort of way; I enjoy the pressure of getting out and performing for the public. Being compared and judged doesn't seem quite right to me.

I'm addicted to the adrenaline of performing, and I think when you're used to having that high, you look for it in other things.

In 1987, I had no idea who Steven Isserlis was. We met at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. It was originally just an Italian summer festival, but for the past 14 years, there's also been a spring festival in America.

I love celebrating music in different and unique ways.

I think, as an artist, it's very important to continue to be challenged and feel challenged all the time.

After every concert, I greet young people in the lobbies. And I see a huge surge of young people playing music.

Being a classical musician, you're doing many things anyway. One day you're doing Bach concerto and the next you're doing some avant-garde thing. It's just another hat that I'm allowed to wear.

I use Facebook quite a lot to keep up with my friends, although I had to delete 'Words With Friends' from my phone because it was wasting too much of my time.

I do basically what a conductor does with a baton, except I also play along with the orchestra. So I have to juggle the roles of playing the concertmaster; sometimes I drop the violin and wave my arms.

There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a conductor say, 'Play softer,' as they're waving their hands in huge gestures.

For me, music has been, in a sense, my religion, and it is what brings me closest to God or truth or whatever you want to call it.

I write arrangements. I'm sort of a wannabe composer.

For me, I'm sort of a wanna-be composer, and I love being involved with the arrangements.

I've always been accused of moving around too much when I play concertos. Sometimes, conductors ask me which of us is leading.

Beethoven's symphonies are not 'relaxing.' They are the most exciting things that have ever been created by a human being.

When Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was premiered, after the second movement, they clapped so much that they had the repeat the second movement and do it again.

The symphonies are the things that, as a soloist, I've not gotten to play. I used to travel the world playing concertos, and then I would sit and listen to the symphony.

Playing the Beethoven symphonies, for example, is a consummate experience for a musician because Beethoven speaks so directly to who we are as people.

Beethoven's fourth and seventh symphonies have a certain amount in common. Well, of course they're both written by Beethoven, but besides that, I would say their overall effect and idea is to provide the listener with an incredible sense of joy.

In concertos, I stand up, and I conduct with the bow when I'm not playing. During symphonies, I sit, but sometimes I stop playing to conduct. Being seated in a section allows me to feel more like we're playing chamber music, which is how I like to approach it.