Quotes from Beverly Sills

It seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not, more important now was for me to love them

I never breathe through the nose, not when I'm singing. In the opera, you don't have so much time. That's fine at the beginning of an opera or after somebody else has been doing an aria, and you want to get a good fresh start.

I think you have to take everything that looks like a blow and turn it into a triumph. This is where my energy comes from: I just won't be licked.

You see why we play so many crazy ladies. We have to be crazy to start with.

I lived through the garbage. I might as well dine on the caviar.

I really do believe I can accomplish a great deal with a big grin. I know some people find that disconcerting, but that doesn't matter.

I'm not happy, I'm cheerful. There's a difference. A happy woman has no cares at all. A cheerful woman has cares but has learned how to deal with them.

There is something in me-I just can't stand to admit defeat.

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

Art is the signature of civilizations.

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.

My parents never told me about Papa's lung cancer or the desperate nature of the operations he was about to undergo, which were a last-ditch effort to contain the spread of his cancer.

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

I began by listening to my mother's collection of Amelita Galli-Curci and Lily Pons records, and then was taken (at age eight) to hear Pons at a Met performance of Lakme. It was at that moment that I decided to become an opera star. Not just an opera singer, but an opera star!

This joyfulness that I felt when I sang, and this need to communicate with people, these are my two strongest points. I've always been a people person. I love people; I like to be with people, and when I got on stage, I was home free.

Opera is an extremely disciplined art form, and every excess a singer indulges in has a direct effect on the voice.

The 'Daughter of the Regiment' that I did in Boston was vintage Sarah Caldwell, which is to say it was brilliant. Before my career was over, I'm sure I sang the role of Marie at least a hundred times, often in productions that cost a fortune, but none touched hers.

My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can't.

In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us.

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

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

I had found a kind of serenity, a new maturity... I didn't feel better or stronger than anyone else but it seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not--more important now was for me to love them. Feeling that way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving.

Attachment to spiritual things is.. just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else.