Professional football is no longer a game. It's a war. And it brings out the same primitive instincts that go back thousands of years.
When my enemies stop hissing, I shall know I'm slipping.
I belong to the givers. I want to give a little happiness even if I haven’t had much for myself. Music has enriched my life and, hopefully - through me, a little - the public’s. If anyone left an opera house feeling more happy and at peace, I achieved my purpose.
Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddam rules.
I don't need the money, dear. I work for art.
An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.
What [Tulio Serafin] said that impressed me was: "When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that. " If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears - and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also - you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know.
I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness.
If I get big laughs, I'm a comedian. If I get little laughs, I'm a humorist. If I get no laughs, I'm a singer.
There is no such thing as an unmusical person.
When you get into the entertainment business, you have to grow up a lot faster, because you're working nine and a half hours a day. I've learned time management at 14-years-old, and I've learned how to do all these different things that some people don't learn until they're in their 20s and 30s.