Jessye Norman Quotes
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Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself.
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It is still more likely that a woman's power would be seen as aggression, and a man's power would be seen as assertion.
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Growing up in Augusta in such a protected and loving community is something that I really enjoy talking about. I love talking about - even though I grew up, of course, in the time of segregated schools: Brown vs. Board of Education came along after I was already in first grade.
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I am the proud and humble recipient of more than 30 honorary doctorate degrees.
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If I were not able to separate the art from the artists, I think I would limit myself a great deal, and life wouldn't be nearly as interesting.
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I like so many different kinds of music that I've never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range.
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I was given the opportunity to write the kind of book that I wanted to write, rather than one that catalogues where I sang and what I sang and what I wore. I wanted to write a book about an American family, the family that has produced me. The longer I live, the more I realise the incredible support and love we were given as children.
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There's no anger ever in a spiritual. There's always the dream of a hope of a better day coming. That God understands the troubles that I'm experiencing.
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One of the reasons that I take such joy in being a trustee of the New York Public Library is the love of reading that I found as a child in the Saturday morning library events for preschoolers and first and second graders as I was growing up in Augusta, GA.
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I would like to see more African-American singers as part of our opera companies. If you take music and the arts out of the public schools, then you're going to lose a lot of people that you might have discovered were talented, very early.
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One has to draw upon one's own musical thoughts and one's own musical acumen, and not to be afraid to let that come into one's work. Perhaps that comes with more experience, but perhaps it also comes with daring, and believing that you should.
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I try to frighten my very young colleagues into studying and understanding their voices before they attempt things that are beyond them. It's wise to take gymnastics and swimming to strengthen the body, because people don't realise what an athletic undertaking singing actually is.
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I was given a stethoscope in a child's 'doctor's bag' at about age six and I loved it! One could hear the heart beating through that plastic toy.
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'Swan,' by Mary Oliver. Poems and prose. Reading from this book is as if visiting a very wise friend. There is wisdom and welcoming kindness on every page.
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I think that, certainly, most of my operatic roles are in German. I think it happened because, of course, I was lucky in that I was invited to sing, first of all, my operatic debut in Berlin at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which was West Berlin at the time.
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I am grateful that my horizons were not narrowed at the outset.
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There has never been a time when I was not committed to, involved in, or caring of, the social and political issues of my world.
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I sing in Hungarian. I read Hungarian. I do not pretend to speak Hungarian, but I sing in languages that I have studied as languages. And I find that to be central and very, very helpful. I think if you're not really cognizant of what every single word means, I think that might be a little tricky.
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As for my voice, it cannot be categorised - and I like it that way, because I sing things that would be considered in the dramatic, mezzo or spinto range.
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A person has the right, and I think the responsibility, to develop all of their talents.
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There have been occasions - and I think it's very good for any human being that such occasions would be rare - that one would feel that one is a channel, and there have been some occasions when it seemed as though I was standing outside of myself watching and listening to myself sing.
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I am not one to equate dress size and artistic performance.
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I have a particular affliction. I am unable to say a word I can't spell.
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I knew that I was loved. And that's such an important thing. And, of course, at such an early age, you take it for granted. Of course your parents love you. Of course Mrs. Hubert across the street loves you and your godmother loves you and your grandparents love you.