Jessye Norman

“I am not one to equate dress size and artistic performance.”

“I am the proud and humble recipient of more than 30 honorary doctorate degrees.”

“Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I am grateful that my horizons were not narrowed at the outset.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I walk an 11-minute mile without huffing and puffing.”

“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.”

“I feel comfortable singing in the great cathedrals of the world because I spent so much time as a child singing in church. And it isn't very different. Of course, nothing looks quite like Notre Dame de Paris.”

“We singers have a different level of responsibility from other musicians. We have words that we must convey; we have meanings that we must convey through these lyrics.”

“I didn't think at all as a young child that music would be my profession. It was just something that one did along with going to Brownies or going to church or going to school or anything else that one did in sort of one's very young life.”

“I have enjoyed most particularly reading the correspondence between Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. The genuine friendship, competitiveness and support that thread through their communications are life lessons for us all.”

“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.”

“I think that it is expansive for the mind, for the fantasy of children and grownups alike, to understand that the world is huge. There is so much in the world to experience, and the odds are so essential to life.”

“I sing in languages that I speak. So when I'm singing a Schubert song, I know precisely what every word means and, you know, when it was composed and who was the poet and all of that and whether Strauss or Wagner or French Belioz, Duparc or Debussy or whatever.”

“I'm dying always.”

“I love singing jazz. I don't like the idea that classical music should be over here and jazz should be someplace else. It's all wonderful, and we should be open to enjoying it all.”

“I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I'll just read some Mary Oliver - this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.”