Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Nothing in my life is going right, right now and there's got to be a reason for that. I think that God is trying to get my attention to tell me that this is going to end very, very badly if I don't walk away from it.
There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.
Hollywood is the sort of town where you wake up in the morning and look out to see if it's still there. I expect the whole movie colony to pick up its tents one night and go back to whatever fairyland they came from.
It's great to have all this stuff at home. But when you want to make it for real, there's still nothing like making music with a bunch of other great musicians in the same room. That's one thing that'll never change.
I would love to have a number one hit. The truth is if I don't get one, I'll be fine, but at the same time, the truth is that I'm dying for one, as well. But it's worth a shot, I think, while I still have cheekbones.
I don't know if it will be my big comeback, but I think it is a statement - that I am a self-sustaining, vibrant, long-term artist, and I'm not going away! And if you don't give me credit, then the musical gods will!
There are a lot of female artists my age around at the moment, but they're all American and blonde and blue-eyed and smiley. I'm totally the opposite of that. I want to show a bit more attitude and I have an opinion.
Honestly I think that the internet is one of the most amazing promotional tools out there. And I think it promotes music getting heard in a grass roots way, where people aren't being force fed to listen to something.
There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.
I remember first seeing Barney Kessel, in the 1940s, standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, in his cowboy boots, sun glasses and hipster threads, holding his guitar case man, you just knew that cat could wail!'
Being the Queen is not all about singing, and being a diva is not all about singing. It has much to do with your service to people. And your social contributions to your community and your civic contributions as well.
I don't know what the future holds, but I know that God holds tomorrow, so it is exciting. Even when I have hard things happen, He loves me so big, so much. I come through it and I grow from it, because He has got me.
Coming up in the African-American culture, we were taught that we belonged to the universe and society was wrong in the way it dealt with us. We had to learn to express and affirm values not from the winning position.
I would sell 2 million records, a million went to teenagers and a million went to the adults. So, when The Beatles became so popular, I lost a million to the teenagers, but I was still selling a million to the adults.
I'm a singer, not a politician, and I think you don't want the two to get confused. It's not OK to be on CNN talking about people starving and then tell the interviewer that your new album is coming out in six months.
When you're a musician, a lot of time people help you out; they take pity on you. Family members will kind of come around and are like, 'Listen, I bought you a bunch of groceries because I know that you're a screwup.'
I started making music for fun, but I had two parents who were very much in the business. I didn't run around trying to get the spotlight. I was very shy. I never sang in front of people 'til I was about 17 years old.
I wouldn't mind living with someone forever. I don't really want to get married. I don't see any reason for it. And yet I'm so romantic that every time I think I meet someone I want to live with them forever and ever.
I think they say that when you're breast feeding, you know, your weight kind of slims down. It's a little easier. It's like a workout within itself. It's very tiring actually and you find yourself snacking more often.
A lot of people are afraid to face themselves, especially when something goes wrong. But that's important, because if something happens within a relationship, it could be how you're allowing someone else to treat you.
It's definitely a dream come true to be recognized and to be able to sign autographs. But, it's also a lot of hard work and can be draining. If you don't know already, you will quickly learn who your real friends are.
They tell me that it will be hard to find a man strong enough to love my own strength and independence, and not worry about being Mr. Diana Ross, but I disagree. I know absolutely that that man is somewhere out there.
If you don't have God in your life, you have to fill up on something. And you usually reach for the four great substitutes, the classical addictions: wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. So you try to fill yourself up.
I was invited to a luncheon with 49 other women to give my opinions about the problematic situation among young people. They wanted me to talk about why is there so much juvenile delinquency in the streets of America.
You kind of half-prepare a speech in your head, and then you get up there and then you end up saying nothing that was in your head before you went up there. It's a very weird thing. I never do award speeches too well.
I love to fish offshore for billfish, and have fished all over for them from the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico to the Texas gulf. I haven't made it to Australia yet, but someday I'm going.
Life is really like that: there are certain things that are wonderful and certain things that are not so wonderful and what you are going to do about it. With grace and with dignity, move through them. Deal with them.
And in fact, one of the central reasons why I never got involved with any drugs or anything is that I remember talking to people in maybe 1975 who saw Hendrix but couldn't remember it. I was like, 'How could that be?'
Now one thing I think is really lame, is if you're an artist and you go to a karaoke bar and sing your own song. I like to get up there and sing stuff that I would never sing on stage anywhere else. Like Neil Diamond.
What I'm getting at is, you know, if we really want to get serious about helping all the people living in the street and getting people jobs, we could just hire half the people in the country to spy on the other half.
When I was nine, I was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and was prescribed beta blockers, which had the side effect of turning my skin green. Looking like Shrek's little sister at school wasn't the easiest thing.
When I got married and when my sister got married, my mom made us both individual cooking books with all of our family recipes and pictures and kind of the history with our Sicilian family, so that was really special.
I wish I got a little bit more time at home. I am away a lot and being around my loved ones and friends is good for me. It grounds me. It's something I need to make more time for. I think I need a little more balance.
It sounds like a cliche, but it... you do sing about what you know about. And I grew up in a small town, and I grew up in a place where your whole world revolved around friends, family, school, and church, and sports.
As a 15, 16-year-old girl, someone messaging you on Facebook and telling you you're fat is devastating. It's still devastating when someone says something horrible about me, but I love myself so much more as a person.
I think I will always be performing; I don't think I can take that away. Because I really just enjoy it. I like getting up to sing; I like the challenge of learning new material and singing it in front of an audience.
I seem to have a soft spot in my heart for Australia and Australian actors. After having worked with one in 'Cinderella' and a multitude of them in 'Cats,' I've wanted the opportunity to actually perform 'down under.'
As a singer and songwriter, I have great admiration for many of the budding stars who come to try their hand at performing and can relate to the hopes and aspirations of all the contestants, no matter how good or bad.
There is something really mysterious about lions. They could rip you apart if they wanted to, but at the same time they look so cuddly. Can you imagine what humans look like to animals? They must think we're so weird.
Don't try and be like someone else. There is already a Michael Jackson, a Janet Jackson, a Beyonce. You be you. And take advantage of the social media platform you have to share. That wasn't around when I started out.
I created my own little online series, 'Love, Life & Music,' years ago, before reality TV got poppin'. I wanted my fans to see that I wasn't just here sitting on my hands. I'm out here every day, grinding and working.
I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I'd written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.
Working with David Bowie was very interesting, but I couldn't surrender to it. I should have let him produce a record for me, but I'm very perverse in some ways. He's brilliant, but the entourage were rather daunting.
Of course, we wrote the songs accordingly and performed and recorded them that way. At that time, we really thought it was right, but you know, seen in retrospect, it made the album sound forced, and not really great.
Cut the crap. Just don't try to be anything that you aren't, have ambition but when it comes to lyrics especially just be honest and write from the heart almost to an awkward degree, at least that's what works for me.
[Doing music] is time consuming, will drain you, and stress you out at times. But in the end if you love doing it, and you're putting out music you're proud of, it will never feel like work. It'll just feel like love.
Cause I can make more money going in and doing my recordings and selling them through my entities that I have, rather than going to a record co. and them release a record and pay me 5 percent of what they make off it.
A lost of people recognize me and maybe will ask for an autograph, but it's nothing like if Elvis would've done something like that, 'cause he's so popular, or maybe The Beatles 'cause they stirred up a lot of action.
How can a song all about struggling with the afterglow of fame thrust someone into fame? How can a lyric like, 'I'm just a singer who already blew his shot,' give a singer another shot? I don't know... but it's funny.
One thing that really attracted me to punk was the DIY aspect. And the fact that, since I was a nerd, I was like 'you mean nerds can belong to this little society? So all of these things went into my attraction to it.