Beverly Sills Quotes

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

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

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 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.

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

Art is the signature of civilizations.

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

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

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

There is no shortcut to anyplace worth going.

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

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.

Opera is music AND drama. I'm prepared to sacrifice the beautiful note for the meaningful sound any time... I can make a pretty tone as well as anyone, but there are times when the drama of a scene demands the opposite of a pretty sound.

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

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

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.

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

So long as it doesn't get to the point where you don't remember whose opera you're listening to, I'm willing to experiment.

I can't be happy every day but I can be cheerful.

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

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

Just sing it. Don't prove you can sing it. I know you can, you know you can. So just do it, because if you try to prove it, you'll lose.

There were times in my career ... when I felt like a trapeze artist doing dangerous somersaults without a net underneath. When you execute those somersaults flawlessly, the audience feels the same sense of triumph the performer does.

There are an awful lot of skinny people in the cemetery.

The press frequently sneers at the hype devoted to a superstar, but the press itself is responsible for all the hype.

Don't get me started on critics.

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

I know that anybody who does all this and doesn't have to, everything thinks she's very driven. The truth is, I enjoy it all so! Can't it be that simple? I think it is! I don't feel overworked. I get a constant kick out of being heavily committed. Is that sick or something? God, what would I do sitting still?

Why let one high C ruin your whole evening?

As soon as I arrive at the house, Laurie starts running, hits my chest, knocks me down, and licks my face. It's become a family ritual.

I never share credit or desserts.

The Lourie Center eases the burden of children and their families through early intervention and diagnoses and treatment.

There is no short cut to a place worth going.

I've always tried to be cheerful, because I think people who whine are boring, and I never could tolerate bores.

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.

The last major childhood disease remains and it's the worst of them all: nuclear war.