Quotes from Linda Ronstadt

I didn't know why I couldn't sing - all I knew was that it was muscular or mechanical. Then, when I was diagnosed with Parkinson's, I was finally given the reason. I now understand that no one can sing with Parkinson's disease. No matter how hard you try. And in my case, I can't sing a note.

Parkinson's is very hard to diagnose. So when I finally went to a neurologist, and he said, 'Oh, you have Parkinson's disease,' I was completely shocked.

I had a galvanised voice: I could sing through a 105 fever or a flu or a root canal or anything that you could throw at me.

You don't forget you have Parkinson's disease, believe me, especially in the shower. If you are not paying attention, you fall down.

The only reason to be with somebody is that they make you a better person and you make them a better person.

You don't want people who have never had to deal with adversity - you want people who have been able to deal successfully with adversity. That's what adds to society. Those are going to be the hardest-working, best people.

I'd go over to my grandmother's house, and she'd be playing opera. They loved opera. Not only did they play it on the radio, but they played it on their piano. Everybody learned how to read music and how to play.

I'll occasionally go and do an honor like the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund because it raises money for a very worthy organization.

I'm a chameleon. I can change my voice a lot. I always was able to, because in my family's music I was a harmony singer, and harmony singing is really hard.

Music isn't just for professionals. We delegate all of our music and our dancing and our art to professionals. It's silly. We should be doing our own dancing and drawing.

What I think is the universal, wonderful thing about music, is that it's very inclusive.

I think there's mind in nature. There's a power in nature, and there's a universal power that you'd better not ignore.

Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight.

Life's full of loss, who knows the cost, living in the memory of the love that never was.

Music should be an elective experience. You should go, "I'm going to sit down and listen to some Beethoven, by God," and then you get to hear it.

I didn't think I was a famous singer. I didn't think I was a star or that I could make the waters part - just that singing was what I was going to do.

Songwriting wasn't my gift. I think you have to cultivate a gift; you have to practice and develop craft around your gift so that you can execute it in more convenient, efficient ways.

I listen mostly to live music, and mostly my musical experience was playing music with other people.

I know my own father's business was very dependent on the goodwill and business and trade from people in northern Mexico. We knew their families and went to their weddings and baptisms and balls and picnics, and we had a great time with them.

I am a believer in discipline; it takes a lot to do well. You need discipline for those little excursions into the chaotic that make life interesting.

Even though I know how very far apart we are, it helps to think we might be wishing underneath the same bright star.

Art is for healing ourselves, and everybody needs their own personal art to heal up their problems.

I never thought I'd write, because I'd never written anything in my whole life.

Full disclosure here - I had a terrible crush on Smokey Robinson, like every other female on the planet.