Gloria Estefan

“Apparently Pope John Paul II and his boys - is that what you call them? - loved one of my songs and thought I was putting spiritual messages in my music. I'm not religious as such. Dogma and I don't get along.”

“My mom was definitely very strict with me.”

“I wrote poetry, which got me into lyrics. Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Elton John pulled me into pop. I started singing with a band - just for fun - when I was 17. And pretty soon, I was thinking I could sing pop in English as well as Spanish.”

“There are certain realities we must speak of with our children that were not present when I was a child.”

“To know that everything we say and do to this new little human being may have a profound effect on him or her is a daunting obligation.”

“My mom was an amazing singer and music was a big part of my life, so I grew up listening to Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini; I used to watch 'The Andy Williams Show' on TV. I was very musical, so I was watching stuff that most kids my age wouldn't be interested in.”

“Being Latin parents makes us extremely expressive with our affections.”

“My job as an entertainer is to take you some place else. I love exploring different genres of music to please my fans.”

“Everything that an artist does is a risk. Some people want you to stay the same. If you want to evolve, they want to keep you in a certain place.”

“My mum had a very strong moral code, which I kind of came with. I never really had to be told what was right or wrong - I knew. I was very mature from early on and I was a very good girl, so she never had any trouble with me.”

“As an artist, you dream about accumulating enough successful music to someday do just one greatest-hits album, but to reach the point where you're releasing your second collection of hits is beyond belief.”

“When you're a front man for a band, there's nowhere to hide. It took me a long time to get used to that. But music is my first love. I started singing when I talked.”

“I'd love to have a program like 'Dr. Laura.' I studied psychology at the University of Miami, and when I rode the bus home from school, perfect strangers would strike up conversations with me and end up telling me their life stories. I think they could sense that I was studying to help people. That, or I have a face like a priest.”

“I've been offered a lot of things that celebrities do that I wouldn't do, like perfumes, lines of clothing and this, that and the other.”

“Sometimes my mother had difficulty communicating with me about certain topics.”

“What's the point if you make something that's not you, and you're successful? You have to perform it the rest of your life.”

“All I tell artists is, 'Do what you love. Never let anybody talk you into changing what your musical idea is just to try to get a hit, because you're chasing your tail that way. It's not going to happen, and if you're successful, you have to do it the rest of your life. Stay true to it and do it for the sake of the art.'”

“I think that the only way to teach is by example, as children will more easily follow what they see you do than what you tell them to do.”

“I think we should all live the moment. But you also have to think ahead. You have to think, 'Am I going to be happy with this five, ten years from now? Is it going to let me evolve and grow, or am I going to grow to one day wish I had never done it?' Sometimes you just have to think a little bit ahead.”

“I spent 15 years on the road between touring and recording and I never saw anything. I want to enjoy life.”