Top 50 Itzhak Perlman Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Never miss an opportunity to teach; when you teach others, you teach yourself.”

— Itzhak Perlman

2. “Sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

— Itzhak Perlman

3. “One must always practice slowly. If you learn something slowly, you forget it slowly.”

— Itzhak Perlman

4. “In difficult times, people just like to hear music. They like to be moved by what they hear. And music speaks different languages.”

— Itzhak Perlman

5. “The most important thing to do is really listen.”

— Itzhak Perlman

6. “For every child prodigy that you know about, at least 50 potential ones have burned out before you even heard about them.”

— Itzhak Perlman

7. “I always say separate your abilities from your disabilities. You know, if I could play the violin, I don’t have to play it standing up. I can play it sitting down and so on.”

— Itzhak Perlman

8. “That’s the goal, to survive your gift.”

— Itzhak Perlman

9. “One of the most important elements in teaching, conducting, and performing, all three, is listening.”

— Itzhak Perlman

10. “Perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.”

— Itzhak Perlman

11. “Every musical phrase has a purpose. It’s like talking. If you talk with a particular purpose, people listen to you, but if you just recite, it’s not as meaningful.”

— Itzhak Perlman

12. “I love to work with young kids.”

— Itzhak Perlman

13. “I always consider myself lucky that I can actually cry listening to some music.”

— Itzhak Perlman

14. “I can’t walk very well, but I’m not onstage to do walking. I’m on the stage to play.”

— Itzhak Perlman

15. “So many things can drive you mad as a child, not only music.”

— Itzhak Perlman

16. “One of the great challenges is to know when things are not right.”

— Itzhak Perlman

17. “A Century of Wisdom is universal and will enrich readers for generations to come.”

— Itzhak Perlman

18. “Sometimes you get from the mouth of kids wonderful things.”

— Itzhak Perlman

19. “Don’t play the way it goes. Play the way it is. And the way it is every time you play it, it’s slightly different. Look for something. So that’s the challenge not to be bored.”

— Itzhak Perlman

20. “I listen to kids play a lot.”

— Itzhak Perlman

21. “I am playing the violin, that’s all I know, nothing else, no education, no nothing. You just practice every day.”

— Itzhak Perlman

22. “When you play a concerto with a small orchestra, you don’t feel it is as important as Carnegie Hall. You try to work out all the little problems. Once that’s all done, trust comes in.”

— Itzhak Perlman

23. “That makes classical music work, the ability to improvise.”

— Itzhak Perlman

24. “This has been my vocation to make music of what remains.”

— Itzhak Perlman

25. “This machine, the wheelchair, I can go all over the place, but you need a place without stairs to get in.”

— Itzhak Perlman

26. “Any gifted child can potentially get in real trouble because of the way they are handled.”

— Itzhak Perlman

27. “Competition can be the most nerve-racking experience. Some people just thrive on it.”

— Itzhak Perlman

28. “Child prodigy is a curse because you’ve got all those terrible possibilities.”

— Itzhak Perlman

29. “Ask many of us who are disabled what we would like in life and you would be surprised how few would say, ‘Not to be disabled.’ We accept our limitations.”

— Itzhak Perlman

30. “I’m now doing three things: concerts, conducting, and teaching, and they each support each other. I learn to see things from different perspectives and listen with different ears. The most important thing that you need to do is really listen.”

— Itzhak Perlman

31. “There are people who are uncanny, who are finished products at a young age. I wasn’t, thank God.”

— Itzhak Perlman

32. “A lot of people like to think that polio was a inspiration in what I do. I think that music has to do with what kind of passion do you have.”

— Itzhak Perlman

33. “The thing is that what you try to do when you play is you try to play not below a certain level. In other words, it can be a special day where it would be phenomenal, but if it’s not below a certain level, that’s the goal. You know, that’s what you want to do. That’s why you practice and so on.”

— Itzhak Perlman

34. “For people who are really talented, what you don’t say becomes extremely important. You have to judge what to say and what to leave alone so you can let the talent develop.”

— Itzhak Perlman

35. “This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in five or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development.”

— Itzhak Perlman

36. “The Violin of my dreams. If you wanna play a pianissimo that is almost inaudible and yet it carries through a hall that seats 3,000 people, there’s your Strad.”

— Itzhak Perlman

37. “I don’t walk on stage unless I’m playing with a orchestra. But when I play a recital, I’m sort of on a scooter, and I just scoot very quickly on stage, and they’re saying, wow, look at this. He’s so fast.”

— Itzhak Perlman

38. “I couldn’t only do one thing – I don’t want the personal hell of oneness.”

— Itzhak Perlman

39. “Preparing for a future in music is an expensive proposition.”

— Itzhak Perlman

40. “Another thing that I don’t like to do is show too much how it goes. I do it once in a blue moon. Sometimes there are lessons when I don’t pick up a violin at all.”

— Itzhak Perlman

41. “Another thing that you really do when you play, that you’re supposed to do, is colors. You know, you cannot play with one color. If you play with one color, again, it’s like watching a beautiful painting, a drawing, but it’s all in blue or it’s all in red. May be very nice, but not very interesting.”

— Itzhak Perlman

42. “I feel that you always pay when you are a child.”

— Itzhak Perlman

43. “A sponge has that much absorbent capability and after a while you can pour water over it and nothing stays.”

— Itzhak Perlman

44. “In Paris they have special wheelchairs that go through every doorway. They don’t change the doorways, they change the wheelchairs. To hell with the people! If someone weighs a couple more pounds, that’s it!”

— Itzhak Perlman

45. “I look at raising funds for The Perlman Music Program as a challenge and as a way to provide opportunities for people who care about the future of classical music.”

— Itzhak Perlman

46. “I don’t feel that the conductor has real power. The orchestra has the power, and every member of it knows instantaneously if you’re just beating time.”

— Itzhak Perlman

47. “I’m just a one-instrument player. I have been known to play a blender, but I basically play – just play the violin.”

— Itzhak Perlman

48. “Not many people like it when they get criticism. Of course, if you have someone who does tell you and you do have a rapport, that’s great. But don’t rely on it. You have to rely on yourself.”

— Itzhak Perlman

49. “Same thing with harmonies. If you hear something that harmonically is interesting, express it. So that’s what I’m saying about talking the music rather than just playing through.”

— Itzhak Perlman

50. “I do three things. I do teaching, I do conducting and I do playing. And each one of those sort of helps the other.”

— Itzhak Perlman