Mstislav Rostropovich

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

The war years were the most difficult time of my life. There was real famine in Moscow. The water froze inside the houses. There was no heat.

Explain to me, please, why in our literature and art so often people absolutely incompetent in this field have the final word.

Deep down, there is in the substance of the cosmos a primordial disposition, sui generis, for self-arrangement and self-involution.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

Although I write to entertain, and try to keep my work free of didacticism, I do have a rather passionate belief in our need to be connected to - and to learn from - history.