Joshua Bell Quotes

While I'm working, I stick with music that won't distract me - the dub stylings of Scientist and King Tubby, maybe some Beethoven string quartets.

Listen now. When people talk listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe.

These days, when people are alone, or feel a moment of boredom, they tend to reach for a device. In a movie theater, at a stop sign, at the checkout line at a supermarket and, yes, at a memorial service, reaching for a device becomes so natural that we start to forget that there is a reason, a good reason, to sit still with our thoughts: It does honor to what we are thinking about. It does honor to ourselves.

I wanted to make an album where every song is kind of interacting - where you can't tell what's the string arrangement and what's the song. I guess that came out of going to college, majoring in music, studying classical music, and even as a kid, being really drawn to classical music.

It really don't matter what you're thinking about, as long as you're thinking about something.

How can anyone become a thinker unless he spends at least a third of every day away from passions, people, and books?

People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done.

Most people don't know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking.

If you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life

We can't stand silence, because silence induces thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.

You keep distracting me,” I tell her. “All I’m doing is sitting here talking to you!” “Exactly,” I say, and I smile at her.j

I don't think people are averse to thinking about things in a deep way, but we have limited time and opportunity to think about things in a deep way. I think that's why there is an appetite for non-fiction - it gives people the opportunity to reexamine ordinary experience and be smarter about it.

The biggest thing is to continue to do what you do. A lot of people, when they get to a certain level, start thinking about it too much and they change what they do.

I spend so much time like living in the past or the future. I mean, I think most people do, really. And the moments when you're really present in your life can be pretty rare, really.

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

Don't think or judge, just listen.

If I'm improvising and I'm not doing well it's because I'm not listening very well. Either I'm overly concerned with something or I'm drifting or maybe I'm too stoned but I'm not getting a clear signal.

I don't think a lot of people in America understand what Indians are. And that's our fault, a little. We tend to forget our roots a bit. As kids we think, If I'm too Indian, I'll be put in a box, and people will think of me as different. They'll think I'm weird, because I eat Indian food or my name is difficult to pronounce.

Whether you're with a group of people, whether you're playing music or whether you're by yourself, even if it's written material, you have to be listening.

Kids are probably frustrated and egos are too much involved and kids don't know how to get together and be kids and start a group and it's kind of sad because I feel like if you come out with three or four people in the beginning, you can be protected and everybody can shield each other. Before you get out there by yourself and get all these people coming at you. I just think it's not really there.

Toys are not a need people typically think of, but they've got all these kids who have absolutely nothing to do.

I always find it funny when people say, "I don't really like classical music" or "it doesn't do anything for me." I tell them, "Well, you know, it does. You go to films and you're responding to it, and you've heard it..." It's controlling you! So don't think you're not being affected. It's a great medium for music.

You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say.

I'm a grenade, I just want to stay away from people and read books, and think.

My whole effort is how to beautify this present moment, how to make people more celebrating, how to make people more joyous, how to give them a little glimpse of blissfulness, how to bring laughter to their life. Then the future takes care of itself. You need not think of the tomorrow, it comes. It comes out of this moment. Let this moment be of great celebration.