I felt that the studio recording process makes you stand still too long.

I knew that I could be more creative onstage, to state my own case and deliver my own interpretation of the role much more aggressively than in the recording studio.

Opera is for a lifetime, not just a minute.

When I perform Strauss, it is as if the music fits me like a glove. My voice seems to lie in a happy area in this music, which is lyrical and passionate at the same time.

I'm completely in charge of my own life now. Sometimes there's no one there to slap me on the hand and say: 'Stop being so bullish and bossy,' and things like that.

My energy is undiminished. Someone said to me the other day, 'Are you retired?' and I said, 'Well, I'm just trying to prove that I'm not.' There's so many things to do.

The word 'no' is a very good word in a singer's repertoire.

I never had the influence of any other singer in my music, so I sounded like myself all the time.

That's been my sort of aim in life, to never miss an opportunity.

I'm more confident now than I've ever been. As you get older, you have to be.

I grew up in the New Zealand countryside. We didn't have television until I was 14, so sing-alongs were our only entertainment.

And now, talking of praying, I realise sadly that there will be little point in praying for you. You are passing now to a region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer.

Many great people have experienced some kind of failure. They build on the lessons from failing to become great.

We grow small trying to be great.

Poetry, far more than fiction, reveals the soul of humanity.

My soul has learned yet more fully than ever, this day, that there is no satisfaction to be found in earthly things-God alone can give rest to my spirit.

The Apologizer Bunny keeps going and going and going.

By using novels, I show ordinary kids confronting and overcoming great odds.

Men enjoy being thought of as hunters, but are generally too lazy to hunt. Women, on the other hand, love to hunt, but would rather nobody knew it.

The intelligent person depends on his own insight; he trusts his own being. He loves and respects himself.

Evil can be opposed without being mirrored. Oppressors can be resisted without being emulated. Enemies can be neutralized without being destroyed.