114 Quotes by Yo-Yo Ma

We're not born creative or destructive. Each one of us has the ability to create or destroy, to leave the world better than we found it, or worse.

Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you're passionate about something, then you're more willing to take risks.

One is that you have to take time, lots of time, to let an idea grow from within. The second is that when you sign on to something, there will be issues of trust, deep trust, the way the members of a string quartet have to trust one another.

There's a part of me that's always charging ahead. I'm the curious kid, always going to the edge.

The tango is really a combination of many cultures, though it eventually became the national music of Argentina.

Practicing is not only playing your instrument, either by yourself or rehearsing with others - it also includes imagining yourself practicing. Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it.

With every year of playing, you want to relax one more muscle. Why? Because the more tense you are, the less you can hear.

I really would like to be involved in things and to understand things, and in some ways you've got to be careful what you wish for because I feel very, very blessed to have such an interesting life and to be able to have little snapshots of lives of people from many different parts of the world.

When we have a good balance between thinking and feeling... our actions and lives are always the richer for it.