Top 50 Zubin Mehta Quotes

Words matter. These are the best Zubin Mehta Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.

If you can sing together, you can live together.

If you can sing together, you can live together.
Zubin Mehta
I think conductors do spend too little time with their orchestras.
Zubin Mehta
Some musical directors have more chutzpah. They pick up the phone and talk people into giving. I prefer to call and say ‘thank you’ after the money has been contributed.
Zubin Mehta
Let’s try to count the number of Nobel prize-winners that have emerged from scientific centres of excellence like the Weizmann Institute and Haifa’s technical university, the Technion. There has to be at least 25.
Zubin Mehta
You might say that Richard Wagner was the Queen Victoria of Europe. He had musical children everywhere!
Zubin Mehta
My father was a trained accountant, a BCom from Sydenham College and a self-taught violinist. In the 1920s, when he was in his teens, he heard a great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, and he was so inspired listening to him that he bought himself a violin, and with a little help from an Italian teacher, he learned to play it.
Zubin Mehta
I wish that only three residents of Tel Aviv could see what conditions on the West Bank are like. Living in such proximity, most Israelis have no idea about the adversity on the West Bank.
Zubin Mehta
I feel growing up in Mumbai is an advantage, as we grow up speaking so many languages that when we go abroad, it becomes easier to learn new languages.
Zubin Mehta
My life is so full of sacrifices.
Zubin Mehta
I am an Indian, so I do yoga.
Zubin Mehta
I’m a Persian Jew, and we don’t speak Hebrew.
Zubin Mehta
I endeavor that all orchestras I conduct sound Central European.
Zubin Mehta
In Chicago, they die for their teams.
Zubin Mehta
Bruckner’s Eighth is a colossus.
Zubin Mehta
Music is the message of peace, and music only brings peace.
Zubin Mehta
Israel is a piece of real estate that neither Jew or Arab will let go of; neither will leave these shores. And so they will have to learn to live together.
Zubin Mehta
Citizens of India, Pakistan, and Kashmir need to come together and make music.
Zubin Mehta
Go to the young conductors who are not making it, and you will hear how we shouldn’t push ourselves or sell ourselves, how they don’t have the right connections and the right opportunities. Well, you can be sure they’ve had the opportunities.
Zubin Mehta
As soon as, say, Saddam Hussein started bombing Israel with Scuds, everyone was like, ‘Poor Israel.’ But when Israel retaliates – and most of the time they then win – people turn against them.
Zubin Mehta
There are people who think I am Israeli. That’s rubbish.
Zubin Mehta
I am not only a Parsi, I am a Kashmiri too.
Zubin Mehta
I have been to Kashmir many times, especially with my family, in the ’70s.
Zubin Mehta
Why does Israel always have to suffer for others to feel bad for it?
Zubin Mehta
I’m a pucca Indian. Bombay is my home.
Zubin Mehta
Open rehearsals reach people who might not otherwise hear the Philharmonic – people on fixed incomes, people who can’t move easily at night, students.
Zubin Mehta
One learns how to change gears within a concert repertoire.
Zubin Mehta
My tastes are Viennese.
Zubin Mehta
I am jealous of all those people who live on the shore of Dal Lake.
Zubin Mehta
My temples are only in India. When I am in India, I go to the religious ceremonies.
Zubin Mehta
I knew at university that medicine was just not for me. I saved many lives by not being a doctor!
Zubin Mehta
I respect the Indian government for the fact that there are no settlements in Kashmir.
Zubin Mehta
After conducting Wagner, Beethoven's triple concerto is

After conducting Wagner, Beethoven’s triple concerto is like taking an Alka Seltzer.
Zubin Mehta
We are so indebted to our ancestors, musically speaking, that they have left us 400 years of music.
Zubin Mehta
New York for a long time was a kind of conductor’s graveyard.
Zubin Mehta
I’m really not a party person. I’m in the business of working with 100 people every day, so I don’t revel in meeting a roomful of people in my leisure time.
Zubin Mehta
I love to conduct opera.
Zubin Mehta
Most Arab Israelis speak Hebrew, but not the other way around. It’s about time that changed.
Zubin Mehta
I love rap because it talks about pain that comes authentically from the ghetto. It moves me.
Zubin Mehta
I just want to play for Hindus and Muslims that sit together. That’s all I want to do.
Zubin Mehta
I am often critical of Israel’s policies when in the country, but then feel defensive of them when overseas.
Zubin Mehta
In Bombay, we have a fine concert hall. I think it is high time we built venues in Delhi and Calcutta, not only for western music, but also Indian music. It doesn’t matter which party is in power; don’t you think the capital of India should have a concert hall?
Zubin Mehta
I am always hearing from Israelis, ‘Oh, CNN is anti-Israel,’ or ‘BBC is against us.’ But no, they are reporting facts.
Zubin Mehta
There was an opinion expressed in the newspapers that, after 20 years, maybe the Israel Philharmonic should consider asking me to leave. I thought they might have a point, so I asked my orchestra. They told me overwhelmingly that they wanted me to stay.
Zubin Mehta
The private sector is growing so incredibly in India, in every city you have industries for whom building a concert hall would be nothing financially. But they just don’t do it.
Zubin Mehta
Just imagine, the thousands and thousands of concerts that take place every single day, all over the world. And the positive effect that they would have on the people listening. Now imagine a world without this. This void… it is unthinkable.
Zubin Mehta
Israel gives the West Bank water twice a week! One way of promoting good would be not to ration water.
Zubin Mehta
I’m hopeful that Israelis can go to Ramallah whenever they want and see how the people are living.
Zubin Mehta
Indian hotels are doing well globally because they understand hospitality.
Zubin Mehta
An American orchestra doesn’t want to play more than it has to. I respectfully disagree with that attitude.
Zubin Mehta
The amount of culture going on in a small country like Israel is amazing.
Zubin Mehta