Opera is for a lifetime, not just a minute.

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.

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.

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

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.

People die from lack of shared empathy and affinity. By establishing social connectedness, we give hope a chance and the other can become heaven. ( "Le ciel c'est l'autre" )

These are hard memories, and I will save the rest of the story for another time.

The deeper you love, the deeper you can feel, and the deeper you will understand love.

I envy people who drink - at least they know what to blame everything on.

Books are challenging and inspirational to me.

I enjoy inventing things out of fun. After all, life is a game, not a career.

Some day science may have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide, by blowing up the world.

Diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fail.

A theology without spirituality would be a sterile academic exercise.

I couldn't see what was real until time had washed away everything else.