Quotes By James Levine

I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment.

Most people treat the office manual the way they treat a software manual. They never look at it.

It wasn't that I ever knew I'd be at the Met for 20 years, or 30 years, or 40 years, or anything like that.

Employee fathers need to step up to the plate and put their family needs on the table.

Working mothers do an hour more per day than working fathers do and working mothers do on average an hour more per day with the kids than working fathers do.

And, over the last thirty years we have seen men's participation in both housework and childcare has increased and women's have stayed at about the same.

If you factor in not just who's doing what at home, but how much more time working fathers are spending on work outside the home, on average they spend two hours more per day outside the home.

Second, if you're the boss, just because they don't ask doesn't mean your employees don't have needs.

At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching.

It's just that, when the orchestra look at me, I want them to see a completely involved person who reflects what we rehearsed, and whose function is to make it possible for them to do it.

I think this orchestra's strengths involve drama and voice.

When they are performing in front of the public, they ought to have a sensation that's relatively easy, if the technical and the interpretive work was done before.

There is no relationship between the gestures and what an orchestra will do.

It was just that we had this phenomenal honeymoon relationship that just kept on going.

It has to be able to play at the maximum expression and communication in every style, and the only way you can do that is - like Verdi said - working with a file, every day, little by little, until the orchestra's collective qualities emerge.

But the important thing is to lie down and fall asleep. That little nap means you wake up fresh again and can continue.

We do not seem to be finding tomorrow's Toscas.

Everybody blames the culture without taking responsibility.

My hunch is that probably men are doing more both outside the home and inside the home.

Art has never been a popularity contest.

What's interesting is that both men and women are struggling with this issue in remarkably similar percentages, but the big difference is that women tend to talk about this when men keep it silent.

Women tend to have recognition and peer group support - recognition from friends and family that this has to be a big issue in their lives. They're more comfortable expressing the need for support and receiving it.

We're in the midst of an evolution, not a revolution.

They've really got to recognize that all of us bring some of our family issues to work and our work home.

And so, little by little, I gradually divested myself of pretty nearly all of the guest conducting I used to do, because I was at the same time working in the places like the Met, where I could work in this sort of depth.

I can imagine wanting to work with this ensemble and this company always.

I grew up in an era where an orchestra was like a treasure chest.

Where my tastes in music are concerned, I'm a real maximalist.

More and more couples are having this negotiation or discussion, but I'm still amazed at the number who aren't and where the cultural norm sort of kicks in and they just assume that mom's got to be the one who stays home, not dad.

I have a big problem with conductors who gesture a lot.