Quotes from Beverly Sills

I love Massenet - 'Manon' had been a wonderful role for me - and the music he wrote for 'Thais' is quite enjoyable and not terribly demanding in a vocal sense.

You can't imitate; all our faces are constructed differently... and the vocal cords; otherwise, we'd all sound alike. I don't think anybody should ever teach by imitating.

A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down.

I was always the first person in the theater all the time. If it was an eight-o'clock curtain, I was here at five-thirty, and it wasn't that I needed to vocalize, because I was all warmed up. I couldn't wait for it to begin.

When I was general director of City Opera, we were pioneers in the practice of projecting supertitles so that American audiences finally could know what all the singing was about.

In a sense, I revolutionized the operatic scene because I proved you can make a great international career without the Metropolitan. I'm the only singer who's done that, and I'm proud of that, so it's all worked out for the best.

I frequently say that I never share blame, I never share credit, and I never share desserts!

Opera became popular in Texas the same way it did in a lot of previously isolated regions of the nation. It started with money. In the case of Texas, it was oil money, and it made a lot of people very rich, very fast.

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.

My father died five days before I returned to New York. He was only fifty-three years old. My parents and my father's doctor had all decided it was wiser for me to go to South America than to stay home and see Papa waste away. For a long time, I felt an enormous sense of guilt about having left my father's side when he was so sick.

At the beginning, I thought, 'Oh, I can't criticize a singer who's doing a role that I adored... even a role I didn't do.' And then I thought, 'The heck with that! Thirty years of experience... ask the girl who did it!' And I feel that if they're not willing to take what I have to say, that's fine! But I'm going to say it.

I got out while they were still fighting to buy tickets to hear me. I believe in getting out when you're on top, and that's what I did.

Art is the signature of civilization.

There is a growing strength in women but it's in the forehead, not the forearm.

Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

I don't share blame. I don't share credit. And I don't share desserts.

Art is the signature of civilizations.

A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.

I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up.

Any excess in life is a substitute for something that's missing.

When you're in love, the whole world is Jewish.