I am a very simple person. In spite of all that has happened to me, I have tried to remain the simple person I started out.

People think I'm disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.

I think a life in music is a life beautifully spent, and this is what I have devoted my life to.

The rivalry is with ourself. I try to be better than is possible. I fight against myself, not against the other.

If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.

Music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion.

Some singers want the audience to love them. I love the audience.

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

You don't need any brains to listen to music.

As an art form, opera is a rare and remarkable creation. For me, it expresses aspects of the human drama that cannot be expressed in any other way, or certainly not as beautifully.

We are all trying to get over the person who broke our hearts. We are all far from perfect.

To express open creativity, you first need to create your own space of seclusion.

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

The idea of writing songs because you're depressed and you need to communicate it somehow, that isn't really true for me.

We have to instill in them the skills they need to succeed at a young age and open up their imaginations to the very real opportunities they can be afforded if they put their minds to it.

We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.

It is important not to confuse race and religion.

The ending of partition was inevitable because Ireland was one nation by history and tradition , by facts of race, geography, and economy