Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
Don't get me started on critics.
I never share credit or desserts.
Art is the signature of civilizations.
Why let one high C ruin your whole evening?
There is no shortcut to anyplace worth going.
There is no short cut to a place worth going.
When you're in love, the whole world is Jewish.
I can't be happy every day but I can be cheerful.
There are an awful lot of skinny people in the cemetery.
There is something in me-I just can't stand to admit defeat.
I lived through the garbage. I might as well dine on the caviar.
I don't share blame. I don't share credit. And I don't share desserts.
In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us.
I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up.
You see why we play so many crazy ladies. We have to be crazy to start with.
There is a growing strength in women but it's in the forehead, not the forearm.
There is a growing strength in women, but it is in the forehead, not in the forearm.
The last major childhood disease remains and it's the worst of them all: nuclear war.
I frequently say that I never share blame, I never share credit, and I never share desserts!
Attachment to spiritual things is... just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else.
It seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not, more important now was for me to love them
I've always tried to be cheerful, because I think people who whine are boring, and I never could tolerate bores.
Opera is an extremely disciplined art form, and every excess a singer indulges in has a direct effect on the voice.
The press frequently sneers at the hype devoted to a superstar, but the press itself is responsible for all the hype.
A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down.
The Lourie Center eases the burden of children and their families through early intervention and diagnoses and treatment.
So long as it doesn't get to the point where you don't remember whose opera you're listening to, I'm willing to experiment.
I got out while they were still fighting to buy tickets to hear me. I believe in getting out when you're on top, and that's what I did.
I really do believe I can accomplish a great deal with a big grin, I know some people find that disconcerting, but that doesn't matter.
As soon as I arrive at the house, Laurie starts running, hits my chest, knocks me down, and licks my face. It's become a family ritual.
Just sing it. Don't prove you can sing it. I know you can, you know you can. So just do it, because if you try to prove it, you'll lose.
I think you have to take everything that looks like a blow and turn it into a triumph. This is where my energy comes from: I just won't be licked.
I love Massenet - 'Manon' had been a wonderful role for me - and the music he wrote for 'Thais' is quite enjoyable and not terribly demanding in a vocal sense.
You can't imitate; all our faces are constructed differently... and the vocal cords; otherwise, we'd all sound alike. I don't think anybody should ever teach by imitating.
When I was general director of City Opera, we were pioneers in the practice of projecting supertitles so that American audiences finally could know what all the singing was about.
My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can't.
My parents never told me about Papa's lung cancer or the desperate nature of the operations he was about to undergo, which were a last-ditch effort to contain the spread of his cancer.
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.
Opera became popular in Texas the same way it did in a lot of previously isolated regions of the nation. It started with money. In the case of Texas, it was oil money, and it made a lot of people very rich, very fast.
I was always the first person in the theater all the time. If it was an eight-o'clock curtain, I was here at five-thirty, and it wasn't that I needed to vocalize, because I was all warmed up. I couldn't wait for it to begin.
I never breathe through the nose, not when I'm singing. In the opera, you don't have so much time. That's fine at the beginning of an opera or after somebody else has been doing an aria, and you want to get a good fresh start.
In a sense, I revolutionized the operatic scene because I proved you can make a great international career without the Metropolitan. I'm the only singer who's done that, and I'm proud of that, so it's all worked out for the best.
There were times in my career ... when I felt like a trapeze artist doing dangerous somersaults without a net underneath. When you execute those somersaults flawlessly, the audience feels the same sense of triumph the performer does.
This joyfulness that I felt when I sang, and this need to communicate with people, these are my two strongest points. I've always been a people person. I love people; I like to be with people, and when I got on stage, I was home free.
Opera is music AND drama. I'm prepared to sacrifice the beautiful note for the meaningful sound any time... I can make a pretty tone as well as anyone, but there are times when the drama of a scene demands the opposite of a pretty sound.
Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.
The 'Daughter of the Regiment' that I did in Boston was vintage Sarah Caldwell, which is to say it was brilliant. Before my career was over, I'm sure I sang the role of Marie at least a hundred times, often in productions that cost a fortune, but none touched hers.
