"Everything was a bigger struggle for me, everything required a bigger effort, so I understood that the sole basis for my future was discipline, and I maintain that discipline today, at 75...I mean, going out onstage to sing is an act of discipline and of absolute passion. Passion is natural, but discipline is willpower."

"The feeling is the same. You close your eyes and you are on the stage and you feel that warmth from the people."

"I still have the passion in my heart. If I don’t sing, my heart doesn’t beat so strong..."

"I regret not having taken more advantage of time — of the solidity of time, the intention of time. That’s why I don’t like to sleep much anymore. Had I known when I was 20 that I was going to be a musician, I would have taken to the piano, I would have taken the guitar more seriously, I would have perfected my knowledge of music."

"If salads sounded like Justin Bieber, children would eat more vegetables."

"If I have problems perceiving a color I don't know who to go to – an opthamologist, a neurologist, or a computer programmer."

"Light is slow."

"Frankly, Neil Harbisson, freaked me the fuck out. Both inspirational and terrifying. Like seeing a benevolent witch displaying her magic: even if you’re only using your powers to grow magic daffodils, it’s an ungodly talent that’s beyond human."

"I had a very special encounter with him. Surreal and especially futuristic. He raises so many questions, so many lines of thought, that force you to think differently."

"Neil Harbisson is one of the world's first bona fide cyborgs."

"Harbisson's antenna, hovering above his Henry V-meets-the-Monkees hairdo, is quite the lifestyle statement. I tell him he looks like a cross between an insect and a call-centre worker."

"Harbisson meets two apparently incompatible conditions: shyness and exhibitionism. He speaks softly, never utters a word higher than another and his body language is that of someone slightly retracted. However, he walks all over the world with a cyborg eye dangling over his forehead in a kind of antenna that seems to sprout from within his head. Along the way, people nudge each other and point at him. But non of that stops him, he remains impassive and continues on his way."

"Beware not to use the future as an excuse to ignore living in the present."

"I don't feel that I'm using technology, I don't feel that I'm wearing technology, I feel that I am technology."

"There are no white skins, and there are no black skins. Humans skins are of different shades of orange."

"Life will be much more exciting when we stop creating applications for mobile phones and we start creating applications for our own body."

"Technology is made by humans. If we modify our body with human creations we become more human."

"It's not the union between my head and the electronic eye what makes me feel 'cyborg', it's the union between the software and my brain."

"When you're a little weird, you aspire to be normal; when you're very weird, you aspire to be recognised for it."

"Si el vino está bien, todo está bien, y si está mal, da lo mismo, con tal de que sea vino..."

"Yo no voy al cine, porque primero juzgo el 'making off'. Yo veo los 'trailers' y el 'así se hizo' en televisión. Con eso ya tengo bastante."

"This is the greatest honour I have ever received in my life. Peace has always been my greatest concern. Yet in my childhood I learned to love it. My mother—an exceptional, brilliant woman — used to speak to me about it when I was still a child, because in those years there were also a lot of wars. What is more, I am a Catalan. Today, a province of Spain. But what has been Catalonia? Catalonia has been the greatest nation in the world. I will tell you why. Catalonia has had the first parliament, much before England. Catalonia had the first United Nations. All the authorities of Catalonia in the Eleventh Century met in a city of France, at that time Catalonia, to speak about peace, at the Eleventh Century. Peace in the world and against, against, against war, the inhumanity of the wars. So I am so happy, so happy, to be with you today. That is why the United Nations, which works solely towards the peace ideal, is in my heart, because anything to do with peace goes straight to my heart."

"The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? There is a brotherhood among all men. This must be recognized if life is to remain. We must learn the love of man."

"What I particularly admire in him is the firm stand he has taken, not only against the oppressors of his countrymen, but also against those opportunists who are always ready to compromise with the Devil. He perceives very clearly that the world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it."

"His playing . . . is one of those rare things that may only come once in a lifetime and even not in one person's life, it may be centuries before there is anyone like that again. He is a funny little fellow only about 30 and plays with his eyes shut practically the whole time, every note every pause and tone colour is reflected in his face and to hear him again, to draw the bow across is a revelation."

"I have not played the cello in front of an audience since long years but I think I must do it this time. I am going to play a melody from the Catalonian folklore: The singing of the Birds. Birds, when in the sky, go singing: Peace, peace, peace. And this is a melody that Bach, Beethoven and all great people would have admired and loved. And, in addition, it springs up from the soul of my country: Catalonia."