Jessye Norman

“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.”

“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.”

“A person has the right, and I think the responsibility, to develop all of their talents.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I'm a sloucher, sort of, when nobody's looking.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I like so many different kinds of music that I've never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range.”

“I have a particular affliction. I am unable to say a word I can't spell.”

“I want to sing more in Spanish. I want to sing the songs of Granados; the songs of Montsalvatge. To do things that truly I've not done before.”

“My parents said to us, practically on a daily basis, that we were as good as anyone else on this earth, and that we would simply have to work harder in order to show that.”

“If you send up a weather vane or put your thumb up in the air every time you want to do something different, to find out what people are going to think about it, you're going to limit yourself. That's a very strange way to live.”

“I enjoy reading about the lives of musicians, and find many similarities in their ideas of preparation and their utter devotion to this great, eternal language: music.”

“It takes a caring community to raise a child that will be a whole person and a contributing citizen.”

“I am deeply spiritual; I revel in those things that make for good - the things that we can do to shed a little light, to help place an oft-dissonant universe back in tune with itself... Long live art, long live friendship, long live the joy of life!”

“I want to keep learning, keep exploring, keep doing more.”

“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.”

“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.”