Quotes from Montserrat Caballe

Nothing special, I have not a special talent. I have been born with a sound, and I like music and try to serve it, but talent is a scientist.

You are born with a sound; everyone is, less or more. And this sound has to be developed. I am not talking about vocal technique; I am not talking about how to sing. I am talking about how to produce a sound.

The sound of a mother's voice expresses a feeling of intimacy, which has a truly magical effect on the listener.

I am not a person who can do nothing. I get very bored.

If I cannot sing, I have the impression that I no longer exist. I mean it. I mean that I am not physically there.

I have always made impresarios a lot of money across my career and have never, so far as I am aware, given any of them heart attacks.

I love to sing with my daughter. Audiences like it because a mother-daughter pairing is a curiosity.

I feel like a person who has dedicated her whole life to the music she loves.

Of course there are other prima donnas around. So many of my colleagues, younger ones, are wonderful.

I have never felt like a diva!

I don't cancel because of temperament. I have had seven major surgeries in my life. I have had tumors. I have had two children with Caesareans; you don't just get up and sing the day after one of those.

The moment you say, 'Please, give me a reason for this', then you are being impossible and temperamental.

It is the sensation of being tired but having a good feeling, you know, a sensation that you have done it honestly and given all your strength. And it is no matter that you feel like this, because this is what you have to do when you go into this sort of life. This is what I choose.

I am living against all predictions. The doctors say I am a sort of witch.

First, love to the family. Second, love to career. Third, love to the audience.

I realised in 1985, after sitting for months and being very down, that I have to move. I have to be busy. Because, otherwise, it is like being in a waiting room. And waiting for what?

Music is part of life. It is not the real life. I belong to that first: family, children. The important things.

This has not changed: always like the first time, very, very nervous. But when the music begins, you are in the music, it's a sort of transformation. Your feeling for the music is greater and has nothing to do with your nerves. You go out of yourself.

Drama if I sing, drama if I don't sing. What do you do?

When a singer truly feels and experiences what the music is all about, the words will automatically ring true.

A soprano's voice is a little like a mother's cry, which is why it attracts all human beings.

I have many that wants to, let's say, marry me. But I always tell my mother that the day I have to ask myself, 'I love this man?' means I don't love him.