I have a particular affliction. I am unable to say a word I can't spell.

I was given a stethoscope in a child's 'doctor's bag' at about age six and I loved it! One could hear the heart beating through that plastic toy.

Pigeon-holes are only comfortable for pigeons.

Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself.

I am grateful that my horizons were not narrowed at the outset.

My arias make me take off as if I were on a trampoline.

It is still more likely that a woman's power would be seen as aggression, and a man's power would be seen as assertion.

There's no anger ever in a spiritual. There's always the dream of a hope of a better day coming. That God understands the troubles that I'm experiencing.

There has never been a time when I was not committed to, involved in, or caring of, the social and political issues of my world.

One needs more than ambition and talent to make a success of anything, really. There must be love and a vocation.

I want to sing more in Spanish. I want to sing the songs of Granados; the songs of Montsalvatge. To do things that truly I've not done before.

We cannot save ourselves. It is only Jesus Christ, who can set us free.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy but that it is a bore.

I think that players play, and they compete, and it's not about incentives.

Like a fly bouncing uselessly off a closed window, I'm caught at a moment when the effort of finding new ways to perceive the world feels just out of reach for me.

There is a great deal of wishful thinking in such cases it is the easiest thing of all to deceive ones self.

It's no secret that my process is a little bit loose and can be a little bit infuriating to a studio if they don't know what they're signing up for.

Every basic act like eating and copulating becomes magical when you do it consciously.

Janie’s hip buzzes again. Maybe she'll have to have her whole leg amputated, she thinks sadly. That would really suck.

What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me.

Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.